We’re so happy today to visit with “The Money Couple”, Bethany and Scott Palmer. They are financial planners, speakers, and authors of First Comes Love, Then Comes Money.
Hear The Money Couple talk with George & Mary-Lynn on The BIGG Success Show podcast. Click the player to listen.
https://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/bigg-success_stacked-1080.png10801080George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Fosterhttps://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/BIGG-Success-Nurturing-Your-Inner-Entreprener.jpgGeorge Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster2011-05-02 06:00:482011-04-24 18:36:24Love and Marriage and Money
You might wonder if we’re being redundant when we say “your” “own” terms. We can understand why you might think that, but we felt that it was important to convey ownership explicitly.
We’ve heard about Brand You. It’s useful to think about the brand image we present and how we market ourselves, but we think it doesn’t go far enough. When it comes to creating your dream life, you are an enterprise level manager, not a brand manager.
A new paradigm
A new paradigm about the role we play in our own lives is gaining traction. Our definition of bigg success – life on your own terms – encompasses this new mindset.
You are the entrepreneur of your own life.
We normally think being an entrepreneur means “I own my own business.” We’re saying that, whether you’re employed or self-employed, you are an entrepreneur.
You own your life.
You run it as you see fit.
You create the life that you want to live. Life on your own terms.
You bring together the resources necessary to build that life. You put the structure that is needed in place to achieve your bigg dream.
That’s what an entrepreneur does.
Your life is your enterprise
It’s not just about the work that you do. Your life is about more than that.
Entrepreneurs don’t just sell a product or a service. They build a business, an entire enterprise.
Your life is your enterprise and you build the life you want. This encompasses both your professional and personal lives.
As the entrepreneur of your own life, it’s crucial to find ways to make all the parts of your life work together. Even more than that, find a way to get all parts of your life working in synergy – with one part adding to another and vice versa. Now that’s bigg success!
CBS resisted, but Lucy insisted
Lucille Ball was the star of a popular radio show called My Favorite Husband. We’re not sure how many husbands she had, but this show was about her favorite one!
She played the wife of a bank vice president. With the advent of television, CBS wanted to move her show to the new medium. But Lucy wanted her real-life husband, Desi Arnaz, to play her TV husband.
CBS resisted, but Lucy insisted.
The CBS executives eventually gave in and I Love Lucy became a bigg success.
Lucy was an entrepreneur! She lived her life on her own terms.
A unique solution for raising the kids
We know a couple who are divorced. They have young children.
Instead of fighting over custody, they have chosen to add on to their house so they can each go on with their lives and their children can be with both of them every day.
This is a unique solution that is working for them. What else matters? Some people think it’s kind of strange, but why should these two people care?
They are entrepreneurs, living their life on their own terms.
A merger that works
We decided we wanted to work together, to merge our professional lives as well as our personal lives. We created Bigg Success to allow us to do that.
We travel together. We work together. We live together. We see each other all the time.
It wouldn’t work for many couples, but it works for us. We’re living our lives on our own terms.
How about you?
What does life on your own terms mean to you? How are you taking ownership of your life?
Here we are. It’s February 27. And we don’t know what to do. You see, last year was Leap Year and we got married on Leap Year Day, February 29. So we’re ready to celebrate our one-year anniversary and the date doesn’t exist!
Of course we knew this when we got married, but we still thought it was fun to get married on Leap Year Day. We get a lot of jokes about it.
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Yeah George, you get a lot of high fives from the guys because they think you only have to remember our anniversary every four years!
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They think I’m a genius!
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One of the interesting things we learned about February 29 is that it doesn’t exist as an option on many drop-down lists. For instance, people born on Leap Year Day can’t enter their correct date of birth. Or, if you’re like us, and you were married on Leap Year Day, the real date often isn’t an option.
We don’t fit into the world. So what are we going to do about that? What do you do when you don’t fit into the world?
Our answer is to make the world fit us instead of trying to fit into the world.
We realized that this is an opportunity to make lemonade out of lemons, as the saying goes. So we’re not going to celebrate on February 28 or March 1. Nope.
We’re going to celebrate on both days!
First, did you notice that, by making the world fit us, we get to celebrate twice as much? Now that’s a good deal! And that’s often the case – if we stop trying to fit into the world, and instead make the world fit us, we end up much happier with the results.
Second, it doesn’t have to work for anybody but us because it doesn’t affect anyone but us. We’re perfectly happy celebrating for two days instead of one. We’re just fine with the date of our wedding not being on the calendar every year. Because it made us come up with a better alternative!
And in being forced to come up with that better alternative, we ended up with an answer that’s even better than if we weren’t faced with this situation. We will get to spend even more time together.
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Hey, I just thought of something … does this mean double the gifts?
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You’ll just have to wait and see, Mary-Lynn. But I just thought of something too. What do we do in 2012 when there actually is a February 29?
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Hmmm, that’s a good question. I guess we’ll have to celebrate for three days … three times the gifts sounds like a good deal to me! Now I’m the genius!
https://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/bigg-success_stacked-1080.png10801080George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Fosterhttps://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/BIGG-Success-Nurturing-Your-Inner-Entreprener.jpgGeorge Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster2009-02-27 05:00:392009-02-26 18:56:45Stop Trying to Fit into the World
1. Men’s share of household duties doubled as a percent of the total over last 40 years, from 15 percent to 30 percent of the total. The number of hours women spend on these same duties has declined over that period.
2. The younger the couple, the higher the share of household duties performed by the man.
3. Time spent caring for children tripled for men and doubled for women over the same period. Couples are placing much more emphasis on spending time with their kids than they did 30 years ago.
4. The longer a woman works outside the home, the greater the percentage of household responsibilities assumed by the man of the house.
5. Men are working less and spending more time on family duties. Women are trending in the opposite direction.
6. When the woman of the house works more hours, earns more money, or has more education than the man, the man’s share of family duties increases.
7. About one of out three couples now has a woman who earns more than the man.
They pointed out that there had been an expectation of immediate change when women started working. That didn’t happen to the disappointment of many! However, over the span of a few decades, things have changed quite a bit and they predict this trend is here to stay!
The bigg payoff
Couples are redefining what it means to be the man or the woman, the father or the mother, in a relationship. This summary shows that the divorce rate is lower when couples divide up the duties more equally. In fact, it’s even lower than with the traditional relationship where one person is the breadwinner and the other person runs the house.
. Mary-Lynn and I both grew up in a traditional family that stayed together. But we’re pretty non-traditional.
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. Yeah, I remember that my mom was always in the kitchen. I determined long ago that wasn’t for me! She kept telling me “you’re going to have to learn how to cook, what are you going to do when you are out on your own?” I told her I would just meet a guy who knew how to cook and marry him. And that guy is George! And let me just add…he’s an AWESOME cook!!! .
Roles are getting redefined so don’t listen to what other people say. If it works for you, your spouse, and your family … it works!
One thing people often don't think about when going into business with a friend is the relationship itself. You’re going into business as friends. You want to remain friends.
Business is full of surprises. Discuss the possible surprises upfront, before you mix friendship and business, so you can keep your relationship strong while you’re in business.
You may think your friendship is really strong … and you’re probably right. But when you go into business together, your friendship will be tested more than it ever has been before. It’s wise to prepare for it beforehand, so you already have a lot of the answers when you’re in the middle of a tough situation.
Look at it this way – a business partnership is like a marriage. You need a pre-nuptial agreement! So find a good attorney to draw up an agreement for you.
8 “What if …” scenarios to discuss with your attorney
#1 – What if the business fails? According to statistics, if the business fails, it’s most likely that no one will be owed any money. But what if that’s not the case – what if the business does owe money? How will you resolve that?
#2 – What if it succeeds wildly? That may not sound like a problem, but you’d be surprised. Sometimes when a business succeeds at this level, greed enters in. Then comes the power struggles. Discuss the dream scenario upfront to avoid a nightmare.
#3 – What if one of you is incapacitated? What if one partner is no longer able to do his or her part? How will the others handle this? Will this person get bought out? Is there formula for the price? There’s a lot to think about if this unfortunate situation happens.
#4 – What if one of you dies? Obviously this is even more extreme than the last scenario. There’s the human side – your friend has passed and you’re grieving. But you also have business to attend to; work still needs to get done.
Many of the same questions from Scenario #3 apply here. But there’s more. For example, does the deceased partner’s family now have an ownership stake? Or do you buy them out?
#5 – What happens when one of you gets married? Or you may already be married. What say does the spouse have in the business? Can the partner’s interest be jointly owned with a spouse or do you want to restrict ownership to your original group?
#6 – What if one of you gets divorced? The business interest may be a significant asset. You probably don’t want a former spouse having a say in your business – even as a minority stakeholder. It can really muddy the waters, as the saying goes. What restrictions will you place on ownership?
#7 – What if one of you wants out? How will you determine a price? What kind of notice will you require? What is the process?
#8 – What if one of isn’t pulling his or her weight? How will you determine that this is case? What can, and will, you do about it?
These aren’t pleasant things to think about, let alone talk about. However, you’re more likely to find good solutions now when you’re thinking logically than to try to work them out in the heat of the moment.
We can’t stress this enough – get a good business attorney. Then sit down with your partners and your attorney and work through these issues. Your attorney will probably have even more situations to discuss. Work through these issues before you start – for the sake of your friendship … and your business.
https://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/bigg-success_stacked-1080.png10801080George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Fosterhttps://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/BIGG-Success-Nurturing-Your-Inner-Entreprener.jpgGeorge Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster2008-07-10 00:40:512021-01-21 18:43:11Before Going into Business with Friends, Consider These 8 Scenerios
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We’re so happy today to visit with “The Money Couple”, Bethany and Scott Palmer. They are financial planners, speakers, and authors of First Comes Love, Then Comes Money.
Here we are. It’s February 27. And we don’t know what to do. You see, last year was Leap Year and we got married on Leap Year Day, February 29. So we’re ready to celebrate our one-year anniversary and the date doesn’t exist! 
One thing people often don't think about when going into business with a friend is the relationship itself. You’re going into business as friends. You want to remain friends.