Next Level Pros - The Strain Every Entrepreneur’s Spouse Feels

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

In this episode of the Next Level Pros Podcast, Daryl sits down with his wife Joanna to share the real side of building a marriage and raising a family while growing businesses. Together they open up about the highs and lows of nearly 20 years of marriage, raising four daughters, and navigating seasons where entrepreneurship pulled them in opposite directions. You’ll hear how they built trust, created family culture, and learned to renegotiate their relationship through different phases of life. If you’ve ever wondered how to keep your spouse connected and your kids grounded while you scale a business, this conversation will give you practical tools and honest insight from both sides of the journey.🔥 Highlights:✅ The hidden struggles of being married to an entrepreneur✅ How to stay connected as a couple when life gets busy✅ Building family culture with mission, values, and vision✅ Why opposites in marriage can actually be a strength✅ Simple practices to protect your relationship while scaling a businessPartner Spotlight: 1SEO Digital AgencyAt Next Level Pros, we teach you the best ways HOW to market your business. If you want additional hands-on help executing, we trust 1SEO, our marketing partner. They implement SEO, PPC, Google Local Services Ads, and high-performance websites that turn stronger operations into booked jobs. Learn more or book a consult: https://1seo.com/next-level-pros/🎧 Listen on:Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1e0cL2v...▶️ YouTube:    / @nextlevelpros  Want more tools and strategies? Join the community:📲 https://linktr.ee/nextlevelprosWant to be a guest? Apply here:📩 https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1YlkV...#nextlevelpros #hvacbusiness #tradesbusiness #businessgrowth #salestraining #nlp #leadership

I really thought, like, as a kid, once you got married, like, you don't have problems anymore. There's moments where everything's great, and you're like, wow, we have the greatest life ever. And I think there's moments where you're like, this, we're taking on too much. Two years ago, we were in completely different roles at the time. He was at Harvard having the time of his life. And, you know, I'm at home with kids going through some pretty intense high school struggles. I just thought, how could we be in the same relationship and having completely different experiences? This was the discussion. It was

Darrell. I don't get why we're together because we are so good. Entrepreneurship doesn't pause at the front door. The people you love carry it with you. Today I'm going to sit down with my wife, Joanna. If you run a small business, you know the grind follows you home. Watch this and you'll learn

how to strengthen your marriage and stay connected to your kids while you scale. But not from my perspective, from the perspective of my wife. Let's jump in. We've got an extremely special guest with us today on the Next Level Pro's podcast, and it's not Daryl. Nope. It is sweet, sweet Joanna. Thanks, guys.

Joanna, thank you for joining us. And for those who don't know, this is my wife. Yes. Hello. Daryl's looking a little nervous. How long have you guys been married? 19 years. 19 years.

Dang. Yeah. Long time. And you guys have four beautiful children. Thank you. Yes, four girls. And each one of them is in a different school. We have one in college, one in high school, one in middle school, and one in elementary school. And you guys are still happily married? Yes. Okay, good. And that was the episode guy. No, I'm just kidding. Jen, we brought you in for a specific reason. We wanted to talk about all things that you've had to experience being married to a chronic entrepreneur.

We often talk about what it's like being an entrepreneur and the identity that comes with us as entrepreneurs, but we often forget to share and talk about how being an entrepreneurship or being in entrepreneurship can impact those around us. And especially it can impact our loved ones. Right now, when I look at you guys, I've seen you guys, I've known you guys for eight years almost, which is crazy to think about. It's been nearly a third of my life I've spent with you guys. Oh, that's great. when I see you guys, what I love is my wife and I, we talk about how much that we aspire to have a relationship similar to your guys is the way you guys raise your kids, the way you

guys treat others in the community. What you guys have created is very special. And I think a lot of people that have come to our events have also noticed that. But I think often people can kind of like misconstituate what that is. People might view it as perfect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm sure it's anything but perfect. Yeah. What are you guys still struggling with now while Daryl is still in an entrepreneurial phase? And that's for me to answer. But we struggle through now in our relationship.

Correct. Or let me give you a better question. Okay. What do you think Daryl might be struggling with or has struggled with as an entrepreneur? from your perspective, what you think Daryl has? I think if you're busy raising a family, I think just struggling with connection when things get really busy for him. And I'm tackling the other half of, you know,

whatever's going on at home. We're not connecting, you know, which is pretty normal, I think, for most marriages. But I think sometimes with work for him, he whether he's out of town or he is here but there's a lot going on i have to cover the rest so then when we when we meet together we're not as connected because maybe we haven't really discussed what happened in the you know the other half of our family here at home versus what's happening with him at work with his um his day so have you ever felt like because entrepreneurs it's like go go go go right so i think there's there's moments where

everything's great and you're like wow we have the greatest life ever and i think there's moments where you're like this i i i'm taking on too much you know do you ever feel like you're left to pick up pieces yeah yeah just this last weekend for sure explain to me like because it's probably happened multiple times throughout your relationship yeah you know darrell's built several large businesses and you guys have built businesses together over the years. And he comes home and you're like, hey, I've been doing all of this all day. And maybe there's like a lack of recognition or communication. And you're left there to pick up everything. Yeah. How are you feeling in those moments? Like, what are you experiencing? Yeah. I think like as a, for me as a female, like it also

depends, you know, what weak it is for me and how I'm going to respond to what's happening. But because there's sometimes where I'm so happy to support him but then there's times where I'm like, all right, I'm tapping out like you're it. Like I can't do another drive by myself to take a kid somewhere for sports or something. But

yeah, I think I think something too that you should talk about is how raising young kids, how it is crazy. Yeah, it really is. I know like you know, I've talked to people

And they're like, yeah, my wife, she's got, we got kids, one's two, one's six, and one's eight, one's 10. And I'm like, oh, she must hate life. Because when you have young kids like that, life is just. I think what to relate to that is, is, I think I saw like a happiness chart for for adults. And the happiness for adults without children, I think was pretty like steadily going up, like a good trajectory, like high. but then adults that have children, their highs were higher and their lows were way lower. So it was like very high and low. And so I think if you can remember that, that's what I was saying like earlier, you know, there's moments where everything's really, really great.

And then there's times where you feel like you kind of hit bottom with like how we're handling things. You know, it's a little bit highs and lows. Hey guys, it's Chris. If you're finding value in what you're hearing, go ahead and like and subscribe. That way people just like you can find this content for free. you're on YouTube. Now let's stop back in the show. Did you always know being with Daryl, even when you guys were just dating that Daryl had this entrepreneurship journey destined for him? You know, I did, but I had a friend in college who pointed it out to me. I had been

dating Daryl for a while and she goes, I just, I really want to find someone, someone like him that maybe Daryl doesn't know this. She had mentioned to me, she had said, you know, he just, he's going to do something. Like, she just, he's going to do something. Like, she just, just, you know, kind of just reminded me like he's focused. He's got, you know, drive to just, you know, he didn't have a lot of fear, right? He was just willing to try anything. And so I think that, um, I, I think I recognize that when we were dating. So you recognize that early on dating? Well, yeah, the, the first time we met, he was recruiting me to go sell summer sales door to door. That was how he, he got me to hang out with him that summer.

when now you guys have gone through this journey for a very long time now you experienced early on you knew Daryl's destined for something or at least you heard that he was destined for something well yeah when we started dating his family would always speak really highly of him too and so before I even met him I had heard heard about him and they had just put him high on a pedestal and so I was excited to meet him the first time I met him because I had met his family before him. Even signing up for summer sales, right? It's much different than like a traditional career path. True. True. And that requires a lot. Yeah, the first year I did sales for him and worked in his office. And then the second summer, I was his office assistant.

Ooh. Yeah. Well, in the office action, huh? Yeah. And then he proposed after that. Okay. Let's go. Because you're just, that was your promotion or? I don't know. I know. I think I was his favorite, but office assistant. I think he thought I did a good job. Did you guys ever have conversations early on about, hey, like, I'm Daryl, I'm about to experience, I'm going to build this business on my own? Like, what are those early foundational expectations, if any, were set? I'll actually jump in here because when I graduated college, right? I was kind of like fed this graduate college.

You can get more opportunity. I graduated college in 2008, which was when the market crashed. so now I'm trying to apply for jobs where there's 20 other people way more experience than me I have no clue I'm talking about I'm green as they can come and I just like man I have to work

four times as much as I've been working and I have to make a third of what I've been making it just didn't make sense to me and so when I graduated I just realized that's when I was like you know what like I can't get a job like I have to go figure out how to do this a better way because I can't go backwards

you hear this now Joanna and you're seeing this probably early on into your relationship are you scared like what take me back to as you're starting to see this start to unfold because this Darrell didn't go through a traditional path as Darrell was talking I was thinking being an entrepreneur

back then wasn't as cool as it is now I don't know if maybe I feel like that maybe just because I've experienced the journey of how cool entrepreneurship is now that I I can say that. But back then, it didn't feel cool when things weren't that great as far as, you know, financially bringing in, you know, what you wanted to or hoping to. So, yeah, now that I think about that, whether it's because of that or if really 10 years, you know, 15, 20 years ago, maybe it really wasn't as, I feel like back then it was like, go be a doctor, you know, go to graduate

school. Like, I feel like those were the things that were pushed. And so this did feel a little bit more of an adventure. But I loved it. We had young children. We were able to try things and we moved a lot. We probably moved

at, you know, three or four times within... A few years. Yeah, five or six years. But I liked it.

I really did like it. Like, or did you always signed up? Yeah, I've always been, I've always trusted Daryl's and even

as we've grown together, I trust him more now too. But I think I've always trusted that that he was going to put the work into whatever he was trying. I feel like he definitely had my trust in that. What's interesting is you guys had kids. You just mentioned it. Kids very young and you guys had them. And what I think is so cool about your guys' story is it seems like every new chapter of your life, a new business venture, a new move started with having a child. that is true yeah so what that looked like was yeah every child we were either moving for a new venture yeah pretty much we're moving for a new venture right because we had evelyn in salt lake and then we moved to Washington Jane was born in Washington yeah Washington jane was born in Washington live was born a month

before we moved to California and then Mary was born in Utah a month before we moved back to Washington. And I remember that. Yes. I remember because you guys were still in Utah and I was calling Daryl for proposal work and you're like, oh yeah, I just had a baby. Yeah. I was like, go home maybe? I don't know. Yeah. Was there a time where you were feeling like, okay, you just had a baby, you were about to have a baby and now you guys are about to embark on a crazy journey, whether it be moving or starting a new career or a new company, but you're like, maybe we should go back to normal life like darrell should go to the job or whatever it might be no i haven't felt that way there's times where he's been like offered uh like like certain areas he could have gone to

that i regret a little bit where i'm like oh if i had known that that area would have turned out to be a good area um i wish i would have let him choose more there's times where i've kind of like um do you want me explain that yeah sure just like a physical area like yeah yeah Yeah, like we were, we were supposed to sell solar, I think in Vegas, the market had opened up. And we had already set our mind to go to California. And I was set on that. And then he said, hey, it looks like we could go to Vegas. And I was like, no, no.

And that ended up being a really great market. And that's where I think over time I've learned to trust him more instead of. And I think California was a great experience for us overall, you know, is one of my favorite experiences. But, you know, financially, that market would have been better. I could have listened to Daryl when he had said, hey, I kind of feel good about this. I know we talked about moving here, but this could be a better option. But, you know, I've learned that in time. Has it ever been a time at all that you've been scared to embark in like this new chapter,

new journey? I'd say the question is not, the better question because she really, I don't think she's ever scared or worried about what I'm doing. It's more of how is that helping her through what she's doing, right? raising four girls, having a new babies or young babies, like that's, I think the challenge has been where like, I'm not there to support her or whatnot. So it's not so much of she's concerned with what I'm doing as much as it's she doesn't feel supportive or she's feeling like there's a lack of presence or whatnot. And moving around was fun when our kids were younger, but it did

get to a point where we needed to stay in one spot and we have, you know. The request was I want to plant flowers and I want to see them next year. Yes. That was so big to me. And the funny thing is, is now I have that and I don't, I, I, I'm working on my garden. I used to have, I used to be really big into gardening. And anyways, now I do have a place where I could have something come back every year. So I actually think that is a really interesting conversation about how like the things you dream of one team and then

having some of those things or all those things and then what you experience versus what you thought they'd bring yeah and i think uh you know we we have we've been blessed we have a lot of you know we have great kids we have great home we have great business we have great partners like we have on paper i'd be like do everything we've i've ever wanted i have yeah um i have other things now I want, but that's, like, looking back 15 years, like, I would say, yeah, this is everything I want it to be. But what's interesting is you still, you still have to find struggle. Like, you still have to find happiness. Like, those things come at you. They just change on where they come from, if that makes sense. Would you agree? Yeah. So what, like, what does that mean?

Or how does that look? Oh, I just think, uh, what you find joy, joy in changes, especially, I mean, the phases of life have changed for us too you know we're we're an older family now we have a daughter in college and yeah how you find joy through um all the the driving and the soccer practices and the um you know the three to 10 schedule has when the day really begins um and and yeah i yeah you still you the simple things really are what's going to bring the most like real joy to your life sometimes hear from significant others that are there to raise the kids while the other is outworking or building a business or whatever might be that a lot of times they feel like they lose themselves a little bit the like a female yeah yeah

have you ever experienced that yeah walk me through what that looks like yeah what what is that Where does that come from? I think you get so wrapped up with wanting to support your children in a way you weren't supported as a kid that is so important to you to, like, be there for them. And so I think you get in a, you really want to control things. You really think no one else can do it as good as you. Whether it's true or not, I don't know. You know, whether I pay someone to go drive my kids to soccer, they're not going to have, and I don't think it's wrong to do that. I've done that.

We've paid kids, we've paid teenagers to take our kids to soccer or things when we can't. make it, and it works sometimes. But yeah, the control part of you as a female is like, oh, but I would have had a better conversation with them. You know, you kind of get in your head a little bit. And so you lose yourself in this quest of wanting to make your children's life the best it can be, you know, and within that, I think you lose yourself because you stop maybe doing things you're interested in or forgetting what you might be any interested in. because I love my middle schooler. I love when she tells me about what's happening at school.

That's like the best TV show I could watch. Like, it is more entertaining than anything I've seen on TV. So I love that, you know. But with that, I get lost in my children's lives, you know. And it's awesome. But I think my relationship with Daryl is really what's going to last when this chapter kind of moves forward. They find their lives.

And, you know, because for me, my relationship with my parents isn't as valuable anymore. And I recognize my kids that will happen to them, too, as they start their own families. So, yeah, I think I'm learning how to have hobbies and pay attention to what I'm interested in on my own, just as an individual. Is that the hobbies? You know, what are you doing? What are the tools or, like, the conversations you have? with yourself or with others to like, for lack of a better term, rediscover yourself, find your purpose again and find who Joanna is.

I think one thing I've noticed is it's really easy to say no to to things that seem scary or new, you know, like I kind of resisted the whole pickleball thing for a while. Like it seemed kind of like a cult like everyone was doing it and you weren't cool unless you played, you know, there were some part of some league and finally I did join a Thursday afternoon pickleball league and it's super fun and I like being with other females that are like different ages you know different generations I mean you've got Gen X you've probably even have baby boomers in there I mean it's it's a wide range of

females playing pickleball on Thursday afternoons and it's it's really fun so yeah I think paying attention to your health to you know nothing's gonna really improve yourself individually if you're not taking care of yourself. So Daryl and I started lifting weights like a year ago or a year and a half ago. And yeah, and because of that, not that when you start paying attention, you start noticing other things and fine-tuning certain things in your health as well, you know, through that. It's not like the answer is lifting weights, but then nine months later you learn something else about yourself because you started lifting weights, you know, it's like those type things.

one of the cool things that evelyn said on our last episode which i don't know if you've realized or if you verbally said this out loud but she's never heard you speak poorly about darrell to other people or to like the children yeah is that always been like a rule for yourself has that been like a framework or like something you guys have discussed prior is that's just like something that's come within so i think honestly well i think darrell's awesome and he's a great dad and a great husband. And so why would I ever want to break him down when I know those are facts, you know? But as I've seen things like research and things people have talked about lately that, you know, kind of backs up what I've done over the years because I've heard people

say that before. Like, I've never like, what bugs you? Tell me what bugs you. You know, they want want me to like give the dirt on darrell or something but um yeah i i really don't have dirt but one thing i've heard though like obviously we still have arguments and we still fight and i've heard someone say that if i go tell someone else about my fight with darrell um they don't ever hear the resolution they just hear that i'm angry and then you know a couple months later they're hanging out with us they're still they're still mad at him because uh we they're They never heard the resolution. I've moved on.

I've, you know, I've had a conclusion to our fight, and we've moved on on from that. But they haven't. And so it doesn't really do any good to, like, I guess, talk to other people about what you're struggling with if they're not ever going to hear the resolution from it. I don't think it helps their relationship with him either, you know. I think, too, like, you in general, I like, you just don't speak bad about anybody. And so I think that's like a characteristic. I don't know why you have that. Levi doesn't. But I think that's I think that's also just part of like your character.

Like you and I think it's a powerful one too because it's hard. I mean life's hard whether you're a mom or entrepreneur or dad or whatever. So I mean having people that are talking negative about you just makes it even harder. So I definitely appreciate that about you. Thank you. Yeah. Talking about this subject I've been thinking a lot with my own children that I need to careful when I'm talking to them individually not to talk about their siblings. If I'm frustrated with their siblings, not to share that with them either. I don't think when I'm with that child, we should just be talking about what that child's doing. I don't need to talk about what the other kids are doing. And I've been thinking about trying to implement that more because

I find myself doing that sometimes. And I just don't think it's helpful for that. I think about it. When you're with your parent or your mom or your dad, like you just want that parent to be with you and talk about you and it's fine if they mention and you have conversations about other siblings but I've been thinking about that lately as well one talent that I think that you have that maybe you don't think it's a talent or not I think of the talent is you have this innate ability to visualize a space and to make it feel like home like I call it feng shui like you've got the functuary oh is that a talent that you've had just innately like internally or is that developed because you guys have moved so many times so you just have this ability to kind of

make the sanctuary that evelyn talks so highly about where like it being home feels like sanctuary yeah what is your ideology on like turning that house into a home so i think uh you're right i when we moved a lot in those earlier years i got a lot of practice because when we when we moved to another house i had to figure out where the couch had to fit in this new house and where's the you know where i'm going to take what i have and make work in the next house you know and so i had a lot of practice. And I don't think it was, I think it's something I practiced. It wasn't just a gift that I've always had because I look back at pictures and there was some like really bad choices and like orange carpets and, you know, I look back and I thought that was so cool at the time. But I see how my

style is like developed in time. But I love, I love looking at a room. Today I was at a dentist office this morning and immediately I knew if the pictures were hung, you know, just 18 inches lower, it would make the whole room feel better, you know? Like, I can feel how things would just feel better, not because someone has to buy new things, just because of the size and the placement of what they're putting in the room. And so, yeah, I'm very passionate about making a space feel better because I think when, like, energetically, you feel better, too, when things are placed a certain way. How important is that energy to protect that energy, too, right? Like, to, like, I'm sure Darrell is at work 10 hours in the day or whatever and to come home to a house that's the energy's

off there's no functuary and for you too when you've got kids running around especially at a young age or it's like it's probably really easy to kind of hermit up and let the house be a mess or let things you know whatever it doesn't matter the kids are going to root anyway but I feel like you've protected that energy for like quite some time like how important is that energy you feel like my house is always clean. Is that what you're saying? No, but I feel like there's, there's like a, I don't want to say system, but there's intention behind everything. Yeah, there is. So feng shui is probably not what you think it is. It's like a, it's like a really old method where it actually, it actually has, I don't know if you really want me to talk about this on your podcast, interior design,

but there actually is like an energetic meaning to every section of your house. And that's what Feng Shui is. There's actually a grid, like a nine rectangular grid, and you can place over the blueprint of your home. In every section, there's a love and relationship section. There's a fame and reputation section. Your health, your family and relationship. So there are sections of your home where if you were to declutter that section, the method in Feng Shui is that that would help you in that part of your life. So yeah, it helps me when I'm cleaning up to have like a higher vision to why I'm cleaning up a certain section instead of being like, oh, I can't believe this part of the house got, you know, destroyed again. It's more like, oh, well, if I put it back

together, it'll help this part of my life, you know, if you believe that. What of your guys' moves or life changes was the most difficult? Oh, well, probably moving from Utah to Washington. Back for Solgin? Yeah, when Solgin began. Because I had my fourth baby. And for some reason, I had really, really terrible postpartum depression. And I didn't have that deep of depression with my other three kids. So it was, that was new. Like that was a whole. You didn't have any depression. Yeah, I mean, maybe baby blues, but that was like way more serious, you know, when we moved to Washington. So it wasn't because of, it was just because of, it was just because of that really what was the overcoming moment or maybe not moment but what are you doing as you're

experiencing this in real time how are you overcoming this i mean i went and got my blood work done after like a couple years i started thinking when i when i couldn't lose the baby weight i'm like what's going on so i got my blood work done started to see i had some kind of thyroid things that needed to be addressed. Yeah, I just started paying paying attention to my health and what I was eating kind of as far as like whole foods versus, yeah, just trying to. This was definitely an interesting change in our marriage because if I would have, if you would have to look at Joanna before that, like Joanna was always joyful, always happened.

Yeah, joy was easy for me to obtain. Always energetic. Yeah. And then this point that just changed. It went away. And it sounds scary. Like, if someone were to tell me that, like, it sounds kind of scary, like, you're really a different person. Like, sometimes I have really good friends in California.

And sometimes I think they don't even, I almost have to be that old person they remember me when they see me because I've, like, changed that much. And they wouldn't, they wouldn't say that. They'd say, no, you're the same, you know. But there is kind of this, it really was a big shift. And now I have to, like, work a little bit harder, I think, to, like, really feel like I did back then. strange really is if now where you guys are fast forwarding to now but looking at everything in hindsight what are some important questions or conversations

that a spouse that knows that they're like a darrell wants to start a business or is pretty deep into a business what are some questions that they should be asking to their spouse? You to Daryl. Daryl comes to you and is like, hey, I want to start a business. And maybe this is the first business. There's no history of building $200 million solar companies.

But they're like, hey, I want to build this home service business. I want to build this medical practice. I want to do this entrepreneurship journey. Are there questions that you should be asking? I'd say, like, how do you find trust in the journey? How do you find trust in the unknown? I think that was something that you've always offered me, which has been powerful. And I think we've always had communication about how to, like, support me, right?

Obviously, we have communication around supporting you. But, yeah, in your mind, how would you see, like, how did you, how would you deal with that if you had to start over? Like, how do you create trust in chaos, right? Yeah. I think, I think there's not much, especially if you're in the beginning stages. of starting a business like the worst thing that could happen isn't really that bad you know if it doesn't work out not really a big deal you can go back to what you were doing i just don't really feel like there's that much of like i remember the biggest thing when we when we were doing um like started

trying different businesses was uh people couldn't believe like we didn't have health insurance right we had to that was huge for me i remember that was one thing i would hammer like yeah but we don't You don't have health insurance. I mean, now it seems so silly because things have changed so much over the last 15 years. But there's so many different options now when you don't have to work for an employer to have health insurance. There's health insurance options out there for you. A lot of times it's a lot more affordable to pay cash anyways. But that was one of those things people would say to you.

So, yeah, I just don't really think there's, I think there's more to lose not trying. Let's go. I really do. You know, I know that's easy for me to say, but I think Daryl used to tease, like, the worst thing that could happen was, is that we would live in your mom's home. And my mom has, like, an amazing daylight basement and a pool. And that would actually be great. And so it's, you know, the worst case scenario really isn't that bad if things don't work out. And you can always go back to what you were doing. So just talking about your character.

because I still, this drives me nuts. I actually didn't realize this till like a couple months ago. But you brought up health care and I made me think of the situation. So Joanna's got her, she's 20 years old. Not right now. I was. Oh, yeah. She's 20 years old, has his brand new baby.

She goes to the doctor and we had decided that we were going to do a delayed vaccine schedule. Very similar to like what we did when you were kids. Yeah. And she walks in the doctor's office and she said, yeah, we're going to do this. And the doctor said, all right, well, then I'm not going to meet with you. You can't be my patient and walked out. What does that do as far as like, how do you, like, how do you feel good about yourself when you have to face that kind of rejection? I mean, it stung for a while because to clarify, he actually told me what I was doing, what's child abuse.

And that's why he couldn't keep me as a patient. I cried. The nurse came back in and she could tell I was teary-eyed and I just kind of grabbed my stuff and left. And sometimes when you have like experiences like that, I just tell myself like, that really hurt. And that's someone's opinion. but because I felt that low in that experience, I'm going to feel a high from that experience. And shortly after, I found an amazing doctor and he was so gentle and kind and listened to me on what I wanted to do with the vaccine schedule and was very supportive.

And that was amazing. So I think sometimes when you experience something really low, you know, the hope is that in that experience, you'll feel a high eventually. I think that's also something we talk about a lot, right? The pendulum swing. Yeah, the pendulum swing. When something doesn't work out, it's like, okay, you went into this negative side, which means there's something positive from it.

And it's like just getting through that so that you can experience the other side. And that saves me a lot when with having kids, you know, when your kids argue and it's really hard at home, you know, it almost seems like, you know, it can feel really, really challenging. And then, you know, six hours later, they're all laughing and teasing each other and their best friends. And you're like, whoa, that was such a shift. So that helps a lot. Sometimes it's an hour later. Yeah, five minutes. Yeah. Five minutes. I've always heard this story from Darrell all the time. And I've tried to implement in my own

life as well where you guys tried to design out the best vacation possible. And the story that it comes from is this supposed Vegas trip that ended up being awful. Yeah. I would love to hear your perspective on this Vegas trip. Okay. And what really happened? I had never been to Vegas. I think we had one child at the time. Yeah, we had Evelyn. And we were we were going to drive from Salt Lake, go down to Vegas for the weekend. I was pretty excited. I've never seen it before. I've always heard, you know, the strip, all this, you know, I just didn't know what it meant, you know. So we didn't do much planning except what was the cheapest hotel we could find and what could we do to not spend any money.

Great plan, great plans. Yeah. If I remember, I'm trying to remember it through pictures that we still have from that trip. But I think I had a baby carrier and we walked everywhere. I mean, my feet killed. I mean, we went to every site you could think of. And it just wasn't that great? and yeah it was exhausting it was exhausting and I don't know what time of year was this

I think it was like an early November maybe so it wasn't too hot you know I was wearing like jeans and things but so then we decided you know years later we were going to go to Vegas again this time we had like three kids and Daryl just for fun was like let's make a list If money was no object, let's make a list of everything we would do. And so we were like, oh, we would take a helicopter ride over Hoover Dam. We would get a penthouse suite, you know, at the nicest hotel or casino. We would, what were some of our other ideas? We would change penthouse suites and then we'd fly to take a helicopter from one hotel to the other.

Okay. We talked about going to shows, dinners. Yeah, the best shows, you know, best dinner. Anyways, so from that list, we ended up, like, jumping off the stratosphere, which was so fun, if anyone's ever done that. That's actually a really fun. It's like a free fall. And so we jumped off the stratosphere that trip. I think we did go to a show.

I think we went to Lake Mead. I went boating. Ended up being such a fun trip for us. And just the difference. It's not like we did what was on that list, but because we just let our minds have. have like that green light of what could we do, made us more creative to come up with other ideas. And so just like allowed your mind to create more options than trying just the only option not to spend any money, you know, kind of suffocates creativity. So then how does that look

today? How does that still happen? With us? Yeah. Like vacations? Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I think there's times where we talk about, okay, if we could do anything, you know, and other ideas get brought up that wouldn't have been brought up, I think, if we don't allow that. So now we do it with the girls. So the girls are chipping in saying whatever. No one's criticizing it. No one's picking it apart, asking how much of the cost. It's like purely just come up with the craziest ideas.

And let's see what cool things we can come up with. Yeah. I also love, too, speaking of you guys with your girls, we just had our culture workshop. Yep. And one of the things that we drilled into the business owners, attending the workshop is how important it is to create this massive vision but to have a mission statement and some core values yes and this is something you guys have done with your family yes please share yeah darrell years ago started we well we started saying this phrase when we were out

together like out on the boat like out on the river it's just like a great night and like I mean there's times when you're out on the river here and it's beautiful and I feel like Daryl would say like how can it get better than this? And we started saying that and then it started turning into this idea like this is our slogan. And I like to take the slogan two different ways. Daryl's Mr. optimistic. So he only takes it like when you're having a really great moment like how can it get better than this meaning like it can get even better. You know, you can have the best moment and it can get even better. I look at it too as like a teaching like moment with my kids where like if they're not liking the situation they're in, they're with a group of friends and they don't think it's

fun. It's like how can it get better than this and what can you do about it? You know, how can you make the situation more fun instead of just not doing anything, you know? But yeah, so that turned it into our mission or slogan, I should say. And then from that we put it together like a mission statement with yeah like a set of like lifestyle goals we follow what's the mission statement uplift our lives and the lives of others and then uplift is like our values so uplift you have unconditional love you have physical well-being you have love of learning inspired by Christ financial financial mastery and then trust in the unknown Gosh.

So we have those core values. Each of them have like really specific, uh, definitions that mean something to us. And our youngest daughter at the time when we created it, uh, couldn't read. So there's just, she has a paper and it has like pictures on it. And she thought it was really cool. She could color and other symbols. So she, she memorized like all the symbols of, of what each of those. The upliftment.

And you guys are, you guys are building this as a family together. Yeah. how important was it to get buy-in with your kids on something like as a kid i'm thinking if i was a teenager i'm sitting in a living room with my siblings and i'm like mom dad core values what are we talking about but your kids embody this now and i don't know why that is i've had people say like oh if i were to bring that home to my kids they wouldn't like it and i don't know our kids just do i think it's like it's it's not like they were like sitting around like listening to us you know i mean I'm sure they were running around the table, but yeah, they were bought into it.

Well, we asked, too, I was like, what's missing here? Does this, do you guys feel like this is aligned? It was their recommendation to have symbols for each of the values. And so then we talked about what those should be. So we created those together as well. I think just because they're not listening doesn't mean they don't hear what's going on. And so I think we've always talked in a way that our kids are listening. or that they're hearing what we're doing,

even though they might not be paying attention. And I think you do that long enough and you start to realize they are paying attention. It's even funny with like Evelyn going to college, she's really embraced way more of our family culture. I can tell she appreciates and wants to keep using. Yeah. And so it's cool to see her take like the culture that we've built in our home

and now she's applying that or pushing that in college in the way she does things and takes care of herself in ways that the conversation she has with roommates about how to handle certain situations which if you rewind you know a few months ago when she's living in her house she's like absentee you know she doesn't even want to be there so it's funny seeing that transition from absentee to to yeah dude this is how we do it I'm like yeah you go girl this is how we do it it's fun yeah in entrepreneurship I think a lot of people always want to talk about dollars and darrell you've always had a very interesting framework around money and it's that dollars enhance your life both good and bad

they can enhance the bad things in your life if they can also enhance the good things in your life Joanna how has money enhanced your life I think it gives us um ways to use our time better, you know, if we can, like, we're going to pay more money to have a better experience with our time. And so, you know, when it comes to vacations or time we're spending as a family, that can definitely enhance the family trip, you know, depending on where we're staying or what we choose to do. I always wanted to have a boat. I grew up in Tri-Cities and I, that was just something I enjoyed doing with my friends and their families. And to me, that has always been something I wanted to do with our family was boating. And that's something

every single person our family loves, including me. So that's definitely something that's enhanced our lives in the summertime. But yeah, I think more of like, what can we do to just enjoy this experience? And if it costs a little bit more money, you know, Daryl's not afraid to tip the the hostess if there's a really long wait, if it gets us sitting down with whoever we're with faster happens quite a bit. You guys want to hear the hack? Give the hack. This is the hack. You show up at a restaurant. There's a line. You got a 45 minute wait, one hour wait. You know, to make that 45 or one hour wait turn to zero. Just a nice little honey. You talk to the lady, say, hey, for a hundred bucks can you get me seed right now and you know what they usually say not usually do what they say

every time you're right this way and so um yeah so once again uh time really because that's about time so you can sit there for an hour or you can just give some kid in need a nice big tip and they'll take care of you so you pay for their service they pay for yours it's just a exchange of value right there so so basically when you tip the host is hundred bucks you're basically just cutting in line and I learned I remember college reading some book I can't remember what the book was but it talked about all the social structures that we inherently and invisibly just follow lines are one of them and so I don't cut in the short line but if there's a super long line the whole premise of this book was like there's there's a gatekeeper there's someone like the

people are the weakest link there's always someone who can like get you in right and so for me it's like a game it's like okay how do i just long lines not short lines i need a challenge but i've cut in some really long lines and i love it joanna hates it yeah i think there's just like a moral compass in me that it feels wrong to let someone else wait and then but then i get i get to go first to cut. You know, it's making the line longer by me cutting too. I also think sometimes, like I was, I was at Silverwood the other day with my girls and we waited in a really long line and we got to know the people in line and had a really fun conversation, small chat, which Darrell loves. And so. But, yeah, even, but if Darrell, if Darrell does the dirty work

and I get a phone call to come to the front of line, I'll go, but there's a little bit of shame involved you'll reap what he so's huh i will show up but i'm always like that little like nervous sorry my girls are actually pretty good at it too they understand i have a couple who are on my side a couple who are on darrell's side so just depends who feels the shame or not in that yeah yeah because you say you say you're going to make them wait they're already waiting you haven't changed their reality at all now whose reality people waiting in a long line like that And once again, it's a social construct that's like, who told us we had to do it that way? The park?

The park? Your mom? Kindergarten, first grade. First grade? It's true. School system taught us that. I understand the value of lines and structure. To me, just understanding that there's always a game involved, that's what makes it fun.

so I obviously don't want to do things that like hurt people or put people out but if I can make something fun out of it and it doesn't hurt anybody why not there's been a couple times I've been grateful when it's yeah there's been a couple times do you hear some of my best ones sure I was going to tell you anyways you're talking about the the outdoor spa right that's a good one that's a good one so we we showed up at this outdoor spa and the line was like hot Springs outdoor hot springs lots of it's an adult only hot springs okay we show with my dad and my sister mom dad sister husband and the line's like 45 minutes long to get in and I'm like ooh this is a good line to cut so then I figure out how can I cut it so what I do is I go to the front there's a

security guard there I said can I use the bathroom you said sure so I go inside then I take off my clothes so I had my swimsuit on, then I'd go over to the ticket line. Well, it was more of like the indoor ticket line. It wasn't even the actual ticket line we were waiting for. Going to like the guests, whatever. I said, hey, I need to pay for six people. There's six of us. So I pay for everybody.

Then I go back to the same security guard. I said, hey, I got tickets for people. Can I call them up? He's like, sure. Call up everyone from the back of line. They come all in. There we go. I was grateful for that one because no one wants to wait in line for a spa day.

So I was pretty excited about that one when he said he was like in his swim shore. It's all excited. I'm like, oh, this is great. I want to wait another hour. That's cool. So anyways, fun stuff like that. Or dolewips at Disneyland. Yeah.

Right? Who wants to wait for a dolewip? Nobody. So all you do is you go to the very front of line and say, hey, I'm buying your order. Can you add this to it? You buy their order and you add your order to it. Everyone's happy. And you get your dole whip.

genius you guys have never fought right with gloves no has there ever been an argument that you guys have had where it ended up turning into like a system or a framework for you guys later in your relationship I think arguments bring up something that's not working and a lot of times you do make changes after arguments even if it's like a relationship, you know, an argument about your personal relationship with each other. Obviously, you have to like reevaluate where things are at with the changes going on in your life. And then from that, usually you renegotiate what's going on in your relationship and make changes. I think that's actually a good word renegotiate. I think you got to realize

like throughout your marriage, you have to like renegotiate your relationship. It's, It's not the same. It wasn't the same when we first started. It changes so much. And I think people lack the negotiation part because what she needs is different. And I might not be aware of it. What I need is different. And she might not be aware of it. And so if we never had that conversation, it actually, we feel like we're just falling apart. Yeah. So like, for example, if there's an event at our house, like we had a discussion recently where there's an event at our house. Instead of having someone come two days later to clean up, they actually like someone needs to like stay and help put things away like the minute after, right? Because it's at our home

and otherwise, you know, I can't wait two days because I have to live there, you know, to clean up from an event. So things like that. Like it wasn't really an argument, but it's like, hey, this didn't work, you know, and like we could, it's really easy to fix. It's not a big deal. It's just making sure you have systems in place like that, like, okay, next time we're going to do this. Yeah, I think it's just getting better 1% of the time. Like, just having the communication, acknowledging it getting better. And then you just start to like stack wins as you do that more. Yeah. I've also learned anger is never a primary reaction or a primary emotion. Like anger is often used as a defense mechanism or security measure behind what's really happening.

Like a deeper feeling or meaning of sadness or loneliness or whatever it is. So I think what you guys bring up, like anger is you could spin it and say like, hey, this is a great catalyst for the real conversation that we need to have. So I find myself will argue, my wife and I will argue about the dishes. But the argument is not about the dishes. And we're angry as a reaction to something else. And the reaction to something else is, hey, I feel unseen because you didn't do what you said you're going to do or whatever the situation might be so I think it's powerful to

realize the moment you can identify that a I'm angry but I'm not angry because I want to be angry I'm angry because of whatever else is happening I think can be yeah powerful I'd say something too we've uh we've recently not recently but over the last few years we've gotten more into astrology and numerology and human design and stuff and it's interesting because these are just different frameworks that we use to help understand each other. For example, like astrology-wise, like, we're complete opposites. And so understanding- We're born, like, exactly six months apart, which is opposites.

Yeah, and so understanding that opposites attract, but they also create a lot of tension. So we just have to be careful so that we, because we know, like, if things go uncheck, like, we will have a ton of conflict because we're opposites. She's going to think very different than the way I'm. I think. And so we oftentimes, now that we're aware of that, we know like, hey, let's make sure we're in sync because if we're in sync, there's strong attraction. And if we're not, there's strong conflict. And so, you know, there's a lot of different things we've used to just try to help understand each other better. Right? What would you say to that? For sure. I think it's easy to

become even more opposites after you've been married to someone for so long because you are covering more ground as far as what you're trying to like successfully get done as like a family unit you know he's going to cover what I'm not covering I'm going to cover what he's not covering and then through that you even become more opposites but if you look at it as more of like the value you're bringing to your family because you're able to cover different roles then it's helpful it's you know you're getting a lot done this was the discussion it was Daryl I don't get why we're together because we are so difference. And that was probably like two years ago. And we were in completely different roles at the time. He was at Harvard, having the time of his life. I mean, going back to be like a boy at college,

like he's loving it. And, you know, I'm at home with, you know, kids going through some pretty intense high school struggles and then, you know, driving everywhere. Anyways, I just thought, how could we be in the same relationship and having completely different experiences? It almost felt like how are we, how are we a couple when you can have such a complete different experience than me? And I think there's a lot of different answers to that question. But yeah, I think that started us kind of self-discovering ourselves and looking more at what it brings to the relationship, our differences, how they're actually good. Yeah, it kind of went from, we have all these differences.

and it was very aware, and it was like, okay, are we supposed to be together? There was this a sign that we were meant to be, not to be together. And then we realized, and we did some, there's some books we've read on this relationship book stuff, but realizing that our differences actually make us stronger together. And so the idea is being married can give you an unfair advantage in life. Because you have someone you share your strengths, weaknesses, your story with, But as you get really integrated with each other, you become more opposite, which allows you to cover more or do more together as a couple. And so what we found was initially it was like, man, we thought it was a weakness.

And then we realized that that weakness could actually be our strength. And so then that's how we were able to move forward. I really thought, like, as a kid, once you got married, like you don't have problems anymore, you know? and it's just crazy how much character development happens from marriage like a lot of developing you know who you are it's pretty it's cool like i think it's a positive thing but it's you know you learn as you go if you could just give a cliff notes one pager of best practices as a spouse or a significant other to an entrepreneur oh okay like a list yeah for your own sanity and maybe entrepreneur sanity.

Like a, explain more. Like a list of... Tools, conversations, questions, support systems. I can start this off. Okay. One thing that's really helpful is if your partner is an entrepreneur for them to say every once in a while, what can I help you with today? Because I think for me, that's really helpful.

Just because I already know Daryl has a thousand things to do today. I already know he does. But when he just takes the time to just say, what's one thing I can help you get done today? A lot of times, and I could be better at communicating, but sometimes when he asks, I'm like, oh, yeah, there actually is this really, and it could be a simple thing. But that helps a lot. You want to list, though. Anything. I think communication is important, too, like, when to communicate.

I remember when I was knocking doors, right? The conversation we had was, like, don't call me when I'm knocking doors. Yeah. Because it distracts me, and I'd rather talk to you than knock doors. So to keep me focused, don't call me during this time. If you do call me, I'm going to answer because that means you need to talk to me. And so we early on had that communication. I thought that was awesome.

Yeah, knocking doors is so emotional when you're out there. And so that worked for knocking doors, for sure, was don't call until the day's over. Then we'll see each other and talk about the day. Now we talk a lot throughout the day. I mean, we talk a couple times throughout the day just to check in because he can. he's not knocking doors door to door I think that's different but yeah um some other things we do do you think in our relationship that are helpful um you guys have like date nights that you like intention we work out in the mornings together that's really helpful um if we can

hop in a car together to like take someone somewhere we'll hop in the car together just to like talk um yeah we're not like a we're not like a strict Friday night date night people we're not like that but we just like to try to find time together i'd also say we don't we don't argue the same way i think other people argue so joanna and i have like more of uh if we get frustrated with each other we're more likely not to say something than to say something and so then to resolve it's okay let's talk so it's usually like when one gets mad at the other or fired up it's it's usually the quiet treatment followed by let's talk and so then

we can talk through it without saying things that maybe we regret or don't want to didn't want to say in the moment so I think that's been helpful too just because yeah I'm sure joins had a lot of things she just wanted to say that she didn't say that she then

rephrased later I'm sure yeah I'm trying to think of like from an entrepreneur like partnership is what you're asking right i think it's i think it's okay to let your partner i don't know maybe darrell i don't know if this is helpful or not and there if there's been times where i've told you like hey i've been worrying about this through certain businesses does that help you or not help you when i share that um i mean i'm always worrying about things in the business

that never goes away so doesn't really um no if it's something that i haven't thought of then it's yeah usually thinking about it though I think one for me I think the biggest thing is when you show trust in what I'm doing right just because you don't see all the pieces yeah and that's the other thing is a lot of times it's easy to talk about the negative things that happened during the day and I realized I started making her worry more about what was going on because all she heard was the negative stuff so from my perspective I'm always trying to share like something that she'll ask like something funny happening at work or something good versus you know what's on my mind in the moment which is

usually something that I got to fix or take care of which is not positive so that's been important for me to always stay positive and share with her something so that she sees the business in that light yeah and Daryl's really good at that like I I'm definitely the more pessimist in the You know, you got those opposites attract. And like he can always reframe a situation that I think is bad into could be the best thing that's ever happened to us. So he is so good mentally that like I should be taking notes. There's times where I'm like, how would, like if I have a problem, I'm like, how would he reframe this? Because right now this feels like the worst, you know. But he always has like a creative way to be like, no, this is like the best thing that's ever happened. I'm like, really? Feels really bad. But he always has like a. everything feels like more of like a game to him he doesn't get so attached to like problems i think that most people get attached to that's awesome yeah who's your favorite child i don't have one oh dang it almost got her guys at next level pros we're here to design lives that impact the world and that includes more than just your business it means in your relationships it means

in your community and that's why we're so thankful for having joanna as a guest on our podcast because we love talking about the whole human and not just your business. If you liked this episode, watch the episode that Daryl did with his daughter with Evelyn, where you get the unique perspective of the insight of a young child of what it's like growing up in the household of an entrepreneur. Until next time, thanks for watching the Next Level Pros podcast.