Feel like you have to achieve more to 'save your relationship'? How you should prioritise your relationship, life and work

The most important decision you will in your career EVER make is the person with whom you choose to have a relationship.

Today, I had the pleasure of chatting with Kelly Roach, an 8 figure entrepreneur, owner of 6 businesses, who successfully balances career and family. Kelly emphasizes the importance of prioritizing relationships and structuring business around personal values. Starting her business part-time while working full-time taught her discipline and time management. She stresses the significance of quality time with family, leaving distractions like phones aside during these moments. We discussed the challenge of maintaining balance in relationships, especially when one partner is highly invested in their career. Open communication about values and roles is crucial for harmony. Kelly advises aligning business with personal values to create a fulfilling life rather than fitting life around work. Prioritizing family and creating space for meaningful connection fosters a healthy balance between personal and professional life.

Contact details for Kelly Roach and her team:
https://kellyroachcoaching.com/

Transcript

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Welcome to our relationship success. Show the place for relationship empowerment and actionable tools. So you can let go of old wounds and create happy, loving relationships. Uh, whether you're single, married, divorced, or anything in between. Set yourself up for relationship success. I'm Dr. Saara clinical psychologist, I'm consultant, helping business leaders and entrepreneurs to feel more connected and whole. Let's get started. Hello and welcome back and today I am so excited to be joined by the most incredible individual Kelly Roach who is a fortune 500 executive turned eight figure entrepreneur and she helps entrepreneurs make a six to eight figures globally and we are going to be talking about this really difficult balance between relationships. And your career and business and actually how is it that you're able to succeed and progress in both? So first of all, I just want to welcome you here today. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Perfect. So I know something that you talk about a lot is how you prioritize your marriage, your family life, and how it is that that is actually the thing that you hold central. That's the thing that is at the forefront. And then you've been able to tailor your business around that. So it'd be really nice to hear a little bit of your background and your story, in terms of how you're even able to configure that. Yeah. I mean, so for me, because I started my business while I was working full time, I really had to learn how to be ruthless with my time, be very disciplined end with my time. And, you know, at first I thought it was a big disadvantage, uh, that I only had a few hours a day to build my business. But what I learned over time was that my business actually started growing faster, even though I was only working in a few hours a day than most entrepreneurs who were working 40, 60 plus hours a week in their business. And. Um, you know, it really just came down to not procrastinating instead of spending time planning, actually spending time taking action and really knowing what the high value activities were to focus on. But because I started my business part time on the side while I was working full time, I never had the luxury of, you know, working full time in my business, you know, and that taught me how to build a business without kind of. Letting it take over every area of life, so to speak. And then when I transitioned from being a part time entrepreneur to a full time entrepreneur, I kind of already had that discipline and that routine, um, and kind of it already established, you know, how my business was going to function around my life versus the other way around. And I think. The thing that we have to remember is that there's, you know, there's no success that's worth compromising, uh, the relationships with the people that you love. And, you know, I think that a lot of entrepreneurs, especially parents are like, you know, I want to give my kids everything that I never had. And we all do, right. But, If your kids had a choice between you giving them more versus you being present and emotionally available for them, they're always going to choose you being present and emotionally available for them. And that's what we forget when we say, Oh, I'm doing it for my family. Right. And, you know, I've built wildly successful companies. I, you know, I'm a very focused, you know, from a career standpoint. Um, but I think. Knowing what comes first and keeping what's first first, uh, is absolutely crucial because I see so many entrepreneurs that they sacrifice everything to have success in their businesses and then they lose their marriage and they're not connected with their children and their burnout and their health is failing and they're not well mentally. And it's like, what is the point? What is the point of having this success if you gave up everything that, you know, you had in order to achieve it, because then you have the success, but you have nothing, right? You have no one to share it with. You have no one to celebrate with you. You don't have the experience of success. When you've lost those things and the pursuit of it. And I think it's just really important to remind people of that. Cause I think you can kind of get lost in the vortex a little bit. Um, because your business is like Cookie Monster. I say this all the time. It's going to take, it's going to take everything you give it, right? It's going to take everything you give it. So you have to be the person, you have to be the adult in the room, so to speak, that puts some boundaries around the box. Otherwise your whole life is going to be consumed, you know? And I think that's really beautiful. And there's this quote by Warren Buffett. I don't know if you know it. So Warren Buffett, obviously greatest investor of all time, arguably, and he says the most important decision that you will ever make in life is. Your choice and partner is your relationship. Yeah, and I agree with that. Yeah, I fully agree with that. Yeah, and it's, you know, it's really interesting because I think it's a bi directional process, right? So there's this idea that I see that a lot of people get sucked into and it's the vortex that you're referring to in that Well, if I work really hard and if I create this amount of wealth, if I create this amount of financial success, physical, practical success, then I can go off and have fun. Then I can go off and enjoy my time with my family and do X, Y, and Z. And often we, we, uh, channel it in that. Way, but actually that's, that's, I would say that that's an inverse in terms of what actually needs to happen because truthfully for us to actually pursue a career, for us to truly succeed, we need to have certain qualities, right? So I know that you talked a little bit about discipline, but I think. even before we get to the stage of discipline, we almost have to come from a mentally clean slate. We have to come from a place of psychological safety. We have to come from a place of emotional stability. And, uh, you know, there's a lot of scientific research out there that shows that actually physical safety. So the things that we might associate with physical safety, like having a roof over your head, food on the table, uh, just being safe. Money in the bank, that that's equally as important as psychological safety, feeling connected, feeling loved, feeling as though you're good enough at home, feeling that your partner is valuing you, feeling respected. So, so actually physical and psychological safety are equally important, but interestingly. If the psychological safety is taken away, so you become more distant with your partner, there's something unspoken about at home, there's this mismatch, there's this difficulty in communicating, there's a sense of disrespect, there's a question of, do they even care anymore? Do they even see me? Well, when those things start to come up, you don't feel psychologically safe. And so what happens is that actually it reduces your cognitive capacity. It reduces the mental space that you have in terms of, well, actually, when I turn up to work, what is it that I need to do that that would be most helpful for the longterm? Yeah. And so we end up getting stuck in this, in this trap where we're constantly in drive mode and we're almost like, go, go, go, go, go, because oh my God, things at home are getting really bad. So maybe if I just work even harder, then I'll be able to fix the stuff at home later. But actually that's when that, that almost traps you into the vortex, right? Because you end up pouring more and more into work believing, hey, you know what, if I can just get us to go on this holiday, or if I can just get her this gift for her birthday, or if I can just do whatever the thing is, then everything's okay. But, but in truth, you're operating from a state of threats. You're operating from a state of fight or flight, and that might get you somewhere, but it's not going to get you anywhere, truly. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think, you know, for, for so many entrepreneurs, uh, I, I say this all the time, but like, they don't realize that like the state at home affects so much your ability to perform and. And a lot of entrepreneurs are in a constant state of overwhelm. And it's exactly what you're saying, like stuff isn't cleaned up at home. And so it's very hard for them to be mentally acute at work. And then that's why they end up working way more hours than what's necessary because it's almost like they have goggles on and things are like blurry and they're trying to make their way through the day, but they don't have that mental acuity. So it's one of those things where like slowing down really is what's going to allow you to speed up because like getting things right at home, getting things right with your partner, getting things right with your kids, like making sure that like your home life, I always say is like peaceful and a stress free environment and that you're set up to win. Like most people already lost the game before they start because they don't have the support that they need at home and they don't have the dynamic with their partner clarified in a way. There's constant like bickering and constant blaming and constant like tug of war of who's responsible for what. And that mental load is so wearing and it takes so much energy that it's very difficult to then turn around and be super like acute and sharp at work, 60, 80 hours a week doing things that they really, which they don't realize could be doing 20 hours a week. But they just don't have like control of their faculties. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And so, um, I'm really curious, actually, in terms of your experience and people either that you've mentored or taught, if you've observed any particular trend in terms of how people may be With regards to their wellbeing, how they operate in themselves, in their personal life, and actually what, what the ripple domino effect is at work. Yeah. I mean, I think what I've seen is a lot of entrepreneurs think that they can. Table their mental health table, their physical health, you know, not focus on anything but the business. And then once they get to success with the business, um, you know, that, that then they'll do all those other things. And what I see is that people learn very quickly that you won't get very far. And then they kind of like get pulled back. Right. And it's like, okay, now I have to stop what I'm doing and slow down and recalibrate and refocus. So I really try to teach people that I'm mentoring to make sure that Whenever you're thinking about trying to do a big up love up level financially or in your business, that the first thing that you focus on is your health, your nutrition, your sleep, your hydration, like really kind of setting a foundation for success, because otherwise you start out of the gate sprinting as fast and as hard as you can, and then you're like out, you're like down and out really quickly, you know, And that's such simple advice, but it's really powerful. Yeah. Like it's such simple things that you can do. Setting yourself up for the long game. It's really just setting yourself up for the long game. Yeah. You're just consolidating your foundation. Yeah. Something I'm really curious about actually is how you navigate your relationship with your family and how you keep that as a protected space. Mm hmm. And And, and because I know that that's something that you've spoken about before, that's something that's really important to you and that is your number one thing, including your faith. And, and, and so I was just really curious in terms of how do you navigate that mental boundary in terms of almost being able to separate and decipher and, and, See with true clarity, what, what's actually meaningful. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think it's just, yeah, exactly. It's knowing your values, right. It's knowing what your true life priorities are. And for me, like, obviously my work is one of my life priorities because it's a vocation for me. It's not something that I'm doing transactionally, you know, just for money. It's something that I've committed, you know, as my life's work. But that said. My family and my faith are my top priority, even above that. So knowing that, um, you know, when I go out to dinner with my family, most of the time I leave my phone at home when I'm having a date a night with my husband, I leave my phone at home. Um, that's why, like, I don't, you know, I, I'm very good about social media from the standpoint of like, I'm extremely consistent. I pump out a ton of content. Um, my brand is online like 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but I'm not. And most of my private life is kept very private and it's not shared online. And I try to not have my phone with me when I'm having family time or when I'm having, you know, an important moment or something's happening, you know, where I want to be, uh, emotionally available and present because you can't be. And that's the thing until we just realize and acknowledge that when you're getting pings and dings and beeps and bumps and dah, dah, dah, dah, it's like you can never be. Truly available and present with the person that you're with. And so for me, I know that. And so I intentionally have made the decision that there's going to be times where I'm just going to physically like remove that from my space so that I can just be focused and present. Um, because that's what the people that you love want more than anything. They want you, they want your presence, you know? Yeah, there's a, there's been this research, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but they asked a hundred, sorry, they asked a thousand parents, if you could have dinner with anybody in the world, dead or alive, who would you have dinner with? And so they were, and so, you know, some of the results came out as like, Oh, Whitney Houston or Beyonce, or, you know, really big people. But then when they asked the kids the same very question, all of the children responded with my parents, with my family. And. The parents were observing the kids responses, but the kids didn't watch the parents responses, and it was, it was so touching. And a lot of parents broke down when they were seeing this, because it really highlighted just how skewed their values were, just how skewed their priorities were in terms of what, what was really meaningful, right? And so the parents were almost kind of glorifying and glamorizing this life. With somebody or this moment with a potential person, not really, not really being grounded in what was truly meaningful. Whereas the kids actually had pure clarity over that. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. That's so, that's so powerful. Yeah. I'm not surprised. Yeah. And so I was, I was just really curious in terms of you leaving your phone at home. And I know that might seem like such a small thing to do when you're on date night or when you're with, with your family. Um, but that, that in itself is such a powerful thing because a lot of people are wedded to their phone, right? They're wedded to their emails. Oh, I am. I mean, when I'm, yeah, when I'm during the work week, I mean, I'm literally carrying it around the house with me. I'm making coffee and I have the phone and it's just constant. I'm constantly in communication with my team and that's why I had to intervene for my own self. Yeah. Right? Like, I had to say, like, no, like, I am not having this distraction, you know, when I, and, and I'm not perfect and I'm still working on it all the time, but I mean, we all have to know, like, what our own kind of human limitations are and make decisions. And for me, I don't want my daughter to grow up and be like, Oh, what was mom like? Well, mom was always on her phone. That would literally kill me. Like, that would literally, like, destroy me. Right? And so you have to make decisions based on the legacy that you want to leave and what you want the people that you love to have as an experience of you. You know? And so much of it is, like, subconscious. It's cultural creep. Into our day to day lives that that's what culture wants. They want you to be obsessed with your phone. They want you to sit on social media 24 seven. They want you to be scrolling. They want you to be distracted. They want you to be disempowered. So you have to own your own psychology. You have to own your own life and be like, okay, that's culture. Um, but what do I want my family life to be like? What do I want my interactions with my family to be? And deciphering that. Can feel like a maze that can feel really tricky because social media, the way that your phone works, anything to do with the realm of career progression. It's all designed to be addictive. It's all designed to pull you up in and it really, and not only that it's designed to be addictive, but it really taps into the primitive. part of you, the part of you that is attuned to threat, the part of you that's attuned to fear. And so it's this question of, oh my gosh, while I just have my phone pinging, I just had this email through, and if I don't respond, I Something bad's going to happen. Exactly. I might not know what that bad thing is, but, but automatically my mind just goes to, okay, this, this has to be, this has to be dealt with. I can't leave my phone down. Yeah. Well, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. And it goes back to what you were saying earlier of psychological safety. Like that is why we're obsessed with our phones because we're afraid we're going to miss something. And we're afraid that we're going to miss out on something, or we're afraid that we're not going to do something, or we're afraid that we're going to miss an opportunity or whatever the case. And you have to ask yourself, well, what would happen, what would happen if I got an opportunity and I wasn't on my phone for an hour and you know, I responded and it was too late. Like if you really earned that opportunity, that opportunity is going to be there an hour later. Right. And if that opportunity is coming on in that one hour, then it wasn't for you anyway. Right. So it's just like, you got to work through that, you know? How, how, sorry, I'm just, um, because I think this in itself is something that a lot of people can identify with. How did you come to that choice of, I really need to put my phone down at this moment and feel okay with your phone not being with you. Yeah, I mean, it was just because I just started seeing that it's constant never ending. I mean, in my case, I have six companies. So think about it. It's like the city that never sleeps, right? And so, you know, but the thing is, is I'm not in a business where we're operating on someone, you know, we're not doing brain surgery. We're not doing open heart surgery. No one's going to die. No one's life is at risk, right? No one's going to get hurt or injured, right? And that's the thing is like, we, we feel like that. We feel like we can't disconnect, but we can disconnect. And it's something that we have to work at because otherwise that will be. What you have the most connection to, and that's primarily strangers on the internet that don't give two craps about you, that the second that you're gone, they'll forget about you and your name will be completely deleted. Whereas your family, like you can never get that time back with them. And especially if you have children, like that time is so. limited. It is so precious, right? And it's so easy to get into these routines, um, with our behaviors where you don't even realize it's like the water and the frog in the water. It's like the water slowly being turned up where you're more and more distracted, more and more disconnected, more and more unavailable. And you don't even realize it until one day people are like, Oh yeah, my kids don't talk to me because you weren't available. They, they weren't benefiting from that relationship, you know? And so just being proactive about investing, investing in the people that you care about. And that's a really painful state to be in because it's too little too late at that point. Yeah. When, when that's what, and, and then you're having to really pour in to be able to repair that rupture. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Something, I suppose, just a slight different tangent that. I was really, uh, considering and it's something that a lot of my clients talk about that they really struggle with is that often in a couple, uh, there will either be one individual who is the business owner, the entrepreneur, and then there'll be the other person who is the homemaker, um, or there will be other couples where both people are entrepreneurs, both people perhaps work in the same business that they've created together, whatever it might be. Um, but something that a problem that often occurs is that there's this power imbalance that somehow. all the sudden transpires. And so the power imbalance may be is that one individual is much more invested in the company and the business, in the running of it. And it's almost as though it fuels and feeds their sense of worth. It almost fuels their ego. And so they become so wrapped up in this, that's It starts to create some level of rupture in the relationship where the person who's being really fueled by their business, even though technically they're not in the business of brain surgery, no one's going to die. They could put their phone down, right? Okay. So this is the objective reality, but the internal reality, their psychological workings is that, well, if I don't do this thing for my work, then I am worthless. Mm hmm. And, and so, and so they kind of lose sight of what's actually happening in their relationship. They lose sight of the fact that there is this power imbalance or this control or this disconnect that's being created, um, because there's so much focused on fueling their own sense of self, their own ego. And, and sometimes that gets translated into arrogance. Sometimes that gets translated into elements of narcissism. Um, but, but ultimately there's this, there's this difficult dynamic that gets created. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and so I suppose it was just really considering actually how, how do couples navigate that? Because, you know, one thing, one thing is really going back to the sense of self and actually your emotional wellbeing and your psychological safety and it, and it's really trying to develop and secure that. Uh, but the, and the other thing is actually how do couples even navigate those difficult conversations. Well, I mean, I think it's, it's really a values conversation, right? Because some couples, uh, value monetary success and lifestyle over other things, whereas other couples value family life and. You know, home life over other things. And I think that that, what you're talking about there, I mean, that really comes down to like what we talked about at the beginning, which is the most important decision you make in your life is your life partner and having the same values, like. If you don't have the same values as your partner and your most highest value is that you want to pursue success, um, you know, financial freedom, you know, all of these things, and your partner's highest value is quality time and family, uh, that, that may be in conflict. But if you agree that your highest value is family and you agree that your highest You know, value is is home life, but you also agree that you will have to work very, very hard in order to have and be and experience those things that you want for your home life, then you have to work together to figure out, well, what does that actually look like? And I think the problem is, is a lot of people Actually have like the real conversations with their spouse or partner about what are our values and what does that look like? And I think that's really important. Like, you know, Billy and I do us days every month. So while Madison's at school, we take the day and we just spend a full day together and we just get to have us time, right? Cause we have one child, which means that every moment that she's home. It's family time. We're all together, the three of us, right? And it's very different than us having time to invest in our marriage and our relationship. So you have to have open dialogue with your partner, your spouse, whoever, about like, what does a good relationship look like to them? What does a good relationship look like to you? What does it take? to make that a reality, right? I think a lot of the studies that they've done have said it's, it's more about quality than it is about quantity. Hence the conversation that we just had about leaving the phone at home. I'm not saying you can't have your phone with you most of the time, five days a week when you're working, but on the weekend, you know, be with your family, like put it down. Right. And it's so hard. And I think just like acknowledging that. And then doing something about it. But I think that, um, a lot of that disconnect, uh, between partners or spouses or whatever the cake that, that leads to really like kind of the disruption or breakdown of the relationship. It's, it's like a lack of understanding because the communication hasn't even happened about like, what's important. What does that look like? Like, what are our roles? How do we balance our roles? Um, what does it look like to invest in our relationship? What do you need from this relationship to feel, to feel fulfilled in it? Um, you know, what do we want family life to look like? What do we want our home experience to be like? Like, these are such important questions that literally shape your life. And most people don't ask the question, let alone have like an open dialogue with their spouse about what, what they want. And so. It's just this constant miscommunication all the time because there's no clarity. And that's why I think roles, um, role clarity in a marriage is so important because like, there's so many things that if you have role clarity, you never have to go back and forth on ever again. Cause it's like, this person owns this and this person owns that. And that's just it. You know, and it's easy versus when no one owns something, it's constant friction and frustration because it's like, Oh, you didn't take out the trash. You didn't wash the dishes. You didn't help enough with this. You didn't do enough with that. You never help with this. And it's like, you could just agree on like who's doing what and just own your thing. And then it's never an issue. Right. That's why communication is important. And even with that, uh, there's this concept, um, that I talk a lot with clients about. And if you imagine a sieve and in a relationship, both people have to constantly be putting into that sieve, they might be putting different things into the sieve. So one person might be doing more of the child rearing stuff. The other person might be doing more of the financial stuff or whatever it might be, but, but both people are putting into the sieve and it gets mixed up in the sieve. And. Everybody reaps the rewards equally. So I can't, for example, expect my partner to do all the dishes, but then it's only my partner that enjoys the dishes, if that makes sense, because, because actually if you're doing that, then you're keeping score. So for instance, if you're doing more of the housework stuff. Which we all enjoy the housework. If I'm doing more of the financial stuff, we all enjoy the finances. And so that's something that's really important as well to recognize, because the moment that there is a divide, there's also the sense of contempt. And so contempt would say, Actually, no, no, I'm, I'm one level better than you because I did the finance, I earned this money, or I did this house that I took over the kids, or I did whatever it is. Yeah. And contempt is one of the greatest risk factors of a relationship ending or a divorce. And that can become really stressful because actually it just fuels a lot of resentment. It fuels a lot of anger and, and uncertainty and instability. Right. Because then I don't know if I feel safe in my own home because I'm not able to safely use this supply, whatever the supply might be. So I think, I think the, the idea of marital roles or roles in your household, I think that that's, that's really important. Um, but then there's also this need for accepting that actually somebody else is also going to reap the rewards as you're reaping the rewards, what they're doing. Yeah. Yeah, and, and, and one other thing as well that you mentioned was in terms of agreeing on values. I suppose one distinction that I'd like to make is that there's a real difference between someone's values and someone's goals, particularly when it comes to a relationship. And I think a lot of people who are very career driven, who are achievement oriented, are very goal driven, right? So I need to achieve this level and then I have to tick the box. Done. Amazing. Okay, what's the next level? What's the next level? What's the next level? And that's really great if you're achievement based because it keeps you going and you're able to continuously progress and you're able to succeed. But when it comes to a relationship, that becomes really challenging because it's not necessarily that you're going to do this one thing, you take the box and then. There you go. That's, that's your relationship. Okay. I'm done. Yeah. Um, but actually with a relationship, it's very much about core values. So it's almost as though you've got a compass. You're both wanting to go north. You're both holding hands and you're both walking north. It's not that you're walking north for the next half mile and then that's it. You're done. Right. But it, but it's something that continuously goes in that direction. Mm hmm. And so, and so even trying to figure out that balance and almost trying to shift from being so achievement based, that might be really serving you in terms of your work versus to being more values based in your home life and in your relationship. I think that in itself is, is A bit of a mental switch. Yeah. For sure. For sure. Absolutely. Because, you know, if you're 100 percent goal driven, um, then you're not ever going to get to live and experience your values. And if those things are totally disconnected, then yeah, you're going to end up both kind of running in opposite directions. And then that's where there's no connection in the relationship anymore. Yeah. Oh, well, it's been absolutely lovely having you here with me. I really do appreciate it and, um, yeah, and I will obviously be including your details in the show notes below, but if there are any final words, I would really appreciate it. Yeah. I mean, I think just, you know, put. time every single day into thinking about not just the business that you're building, but the life that you're creating and know what you want your experience of every day to be, and then build a business around that. It's really, really hard to build the business and then try to Fit your life around it. Um, and a lot of people, you know, are not happy with that result, but if you know, your values, you know, the life that you want to live, you know, the kind of parameters of, of what you're trying to create, then you are the creator of your business. You are the designer and you can ultimately arrange those pieces. However you want to serve the direction that you want to go with your family and with your life. Peaceful, peaceful. Thank you so much for joining me. Yeah. Thanks for having me. All right. Thank you everybody. And until next time, take care. 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