In this empowering episode, Dr. Robin Buckley shares how you can apply business strategies to strengthen your marriage. If you’re struggling to balance work and relationships, or if you feel overwhelmed by marital challenges, you won’t want to miss it.

You will discover:

- Why business skills like strategy can enhance your marriage across all stages

- How to create a mission statement to align your relationship goals

- What 180 thinking does to control negative thoughts and improve communication

This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stages 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 of The Founder's Evolution. Not sure which stage you're in? Find out for free in less than 10 minutes at https://www.scalearchitects.com/founders/quiz

Dr. Robin Buckley earned her PhD in clinical psychology from Hofstra University, with specialized training in cognitive behavioral methodology and executive coaching. Multiple media platforms featured her work, including Entrepreneur, Chief, Authority Magazine, Nike, and the TED stage. As an international speaker, Robin focuses on applying cognitive behavioral strategies to mental wellness in the workplace and women’s equity and empowerment. As a coach, Robin applies cognitive behavioral tactics to help organizations, couples, and individuals create strategic plans for professional and personal success.

Want to learn more about Dr. Robin Buckley's work at Insights Group? Check out her website at drrobinbuckley.com, her company website at https://igcoaching.net/, and her book, Marriage Inc Build a Thriving Relationship with a Business Mindset

Mentioned in this episode:

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Founder's Quiz

Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once

again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast,

where here with us today is yet another high demand coach

in the one and only, Dr Robin Buckley, who earned her PhD in

Clinical Psychology from Hofstra University with

specialized training in cognitive behavioral

methodology and executive coaching. Multiple media

multiple media platforms featured her work, including

entrepreneur, Chief authority magazine, Nike and even the

TED stage. As an international speaker, Robin focuses on

applying cognitive behavioral strategies to mental wellness

in the workplace and women's equity and empowerment. And as

a coach, Robin applies cognitive behavioral tactics

to help organizations, couples and individuals, create

strategic plans for personal and professional success. And

she's got a very, very cool book that we're going to talk

about here today called Marriage Inc, building a or

build a thriving relationship with a business mindset, very

excited to dive in. Well, first off, Dr Robin, thanks so

much for being on the show. I'm excited to have you here

for this conversation today, talking about the founder's

guide to marriage. I think that's where we're going with

this. And you argue in the book that marriage isn't hard

work, but requires diligence, attention, nurturement,

dedication and strategy. Five things that, if we're honest,

founders are generally pretty good, at at least, most of

them in business. So why is it that so many founders struggle

to apply these same skills to their marriages?

Dr. Robin Buckley: Yeah, it's really simple, Scott. I think

that we have been raised in society that business and our

personal relationships are different, that they're

different worlds, that we should keep those boundaries.

We're taught, you know, to make sure they have those

boundaries, to keep those areas of our lives healthy.

But I argue that while the boundaries are sometimes good

in terms of designated time and focusing, that why

reinvent the wheel if we're good at things in our

professional life, particularly as founders. Why

couldn't those same skills and strategies be applied to our

relationships? For the same level of success, we don't

have to become a different person or try different

things, the things that we do well or that we really apply

successfully at work, can do the same thing in our

relationships. So it's breaking down just that that

societal construct that work and in a home life or

relationships are essentially different because they're

actually not.

So practically speaking, what

dive right in with this? Start at the very beginning. You

know, oftentimes, when you're figuring out what you want

your business to be all about, you start with a mission

statement and a vision statement. And so how, can

crafting these in their company? How can they take

that skill and apply it to a marriage? And what's the

benefit or the result that you tend to see in folks who do?

Dr. Robin Buckley: Right, founders can tell me clearly

why mission and vision statements are important for a

business. There are no successful businesses out

there that don't have both of those in place, and the same

benefits happen when you apply it to your relationship.

Although I would say about 99% of the clients I work with

don't have a relationship, mission and or vision

statement, but it offers the same direction unity, focus on

shared values, focus on the ultimate goal. And so when we

build in this practice of not only creating these statements

in our relationships, but then posting them and revisiting

them as dynamic tools as our relationship evolves, just

like we would in a business. And maybe it doesn't happen

for 1015, years, because the current mission and vision

statement worked, but when it needs some tweaking, then we

can do it, but it creates that, that unified direction

for the couple, so that there isn't any kind of

miscommunication or completely different ideas of where the

relationship is going.

Yeah, you have this really cool model

that you depict in the book. It's very, very simple. And if

I remember correctly, it's why, how? What is that right,

right? And so just, if you're like, What is a mission

statement for a marriage? Well, first off, get the book,

because there's all kinds of detail in there about it. But

just simply ask, like, why, right? How, how, like, how are

we going to behave? How are we going to engage with each

other, and what's that look like? What are we going to do

and do it together? So, why? How? Yeah, why? How? What I

love that it was just so simple, it jumped right off

the page at me?

Dr. Robin Buckley: Yeah. And that's a kind of joke that's

been around because Simon Sinek created it. It's his

golden circle approach. And I've always appreciated it

because it simplifies it, and it keeps people focusing on

three questions, one word questions that they can apply

in their professional life, but also in their personal

life.

Yeah, you've also got this great concept in

the book and moving toward identifying pain points as

opposed to problems. Great, great language there. It's

funny how little semantics can make such a big difference.

So. What's the difference between a pain point and a

problem? And for those who are very used to solving problems

at work, how can they translate this into helping

relieve pain points at home?

Dr. Robin Buckley: Right. So you're right. Semantics are

important. They're not just words. It's how our brain

hears it and interprets it when we talk about problems,

there is typically an emotional reaction just to

that word, and we see it as something really negative pain

points. Creates a little more objectivity, and it allows us

to think about, okay, how is this a challenge that we can

work around, that we're going to come up with some solutions

for? It is not as as intimidating as a problem,

because problems might ask and not be fixable, but a pain

point is and we know this in business. So when we talk

about, when the couples I work with, we talk about, okay,

what are the pain points? They can talk about pain points in

much more objective terms than problems. Typically, when we

talk about problems, then a lot of times, it disintegrates

into resentment and bitterness and blame, whereas pain points

are okay. What is we? What are we dealing with as an

organization? And when I talk about an organization, it's

the couple. What are we as the organization of our

partnership? What are we dealing with that we want to

overcome so we continue to flourish?

Yeah, I love that. I love that. So a lot of

particularly successful founders tend to become pros

at controlling chaos, right? It's just that they're

professional business plate spinners, but you make the

argument, I think, very well in the book, that we also need

to control our brains, and particularly in relationship

and so coming from your back down background, your PhD,

this really cool mix of cognitive behavioral world and

executive coaching, right? Not a whole lot of folks who have

both of those expertise. What? Maybe you could boil that down

to, one, what does that mean? And two, what's a simple

strategy that we could take and run with as early as

today?

Dr. Robin Buckley: Right. So what I always tell people,

Scott, is that the cognitive behavioral strategies seem

like either too easy or a little bit fluffy, and so I

always help clients understand what is the neuroscience

behind them. How are you actually, literally changing

your brain when you use these strategies? So when I talk

about making your brain your ally instead of your

adversary, for your relationship, is knowing how

your brain works, and then, even more importantly, how the

specific cognitive behavioral strategies work on your brain.

What most of us do is we let our brains run us like a

toddler on caffeine, and we just let it run rampant, and

that's what undermines our successful handling of any

situation in our life, whether it's work or family or

relationship. So the strategies that I work with

clients on involve understanding first, what

parts of the brain the strategies are going to

target, whether prefrontal cortex or the amygdala, and

then actually practicing because the strategies aren't

hard, it's developing the habits to use the strategies

that are the challenge for a lot of people. And one of the

easiest, I think it's one of the easiest, is when you catch

your brain asking the the really negative or horrible,

what ifs so? What if my spouse leaves me? What if my spouse

is cheating on me? What if we can't get past this pain

point, most of us ruminate on those what ifs, and they just

spin. And that's what wakes us up at night, and that's what

creates discontent between me and my partner. So the simple

strategy is called 180 thinking, and in those moments

when you have those really negative what ifs, you get to

ask the exact opposite, the 180 of that. What if, so? What

if my partner is cheating? What if I'm not seeing the

signs correctly, or what if it's just a miscommunication?

What if we can't get past this pain point? What if we can and

our relationships gets relationship builds and gets

better. You ask the opposite not to convince your brain,

because your brain is a good BI good BS tool. It'll know

when you're trying to force an idea into it and just want you

to accept it, you know on no fact, but you're allowing the

brain to say, Well, if the worst case scenario is

possible and hasn't happened yet, then that means the best

case scenario, or something in the middle, is possible

because it hasn't happened yet. So you engage your

logical part of your brain, your strategic part of your

brain, you invite it into the conversation. So it's not just

the worries that are dominating your thinking which

will then dominate your behavior and likely undermine

the relationship, rather than being able to have effective

communication and strategic plan in the relationship.

Yeah, yeah, it's so simple, but remarkably

powerful, and they stack right when you get one or two of

these, yeah, there's all read the chapter. It's amazing. You

won't regret it. I do want to kind of push forward, though,

because there's a lot to cover here, and the next thing that

I want to dive into is this idea of delineating roles and

titles, which could get real weird real quick, right? You

go home and call your husband or wife, your COO or your

executive assistant, that might not work super well, but

what? How can we take the clarity that comes from roles

and titles, and create that same kind of clarity in what

we do and how we behave at home?

Dr. Robin Buckley: Right. So any of your listeners can

think about this when they've been in a relationship and

things aren't clear as to who's going to take care of

what, or who's in charge of, really the oversight of

something. It gets really cumbersome. Things don't

happen, or we make assumptions that someone else is going to

take care of it. We would never do this at work. We

would never say, Hey, we've got this project. Let's get it

done. We would assign roles and tasks and have timelines.

We don't do this very often in our relationships, but as soon

as we do, it streamlines the relationship, which means

there's more cognitive energy to devote to enhancing the

relationship. And I use the example in my book. You

probably remember Scott, that in my relationship, my husband

is the CFO. He loves playing with numbers. He's really good

at it. I can do it. It's just not as exciting to me. So when

we merged our families, we made the decision we were both

trying to pay bills at the same time. It was getting just

the overlap was getting difficult. So finally, we

decided, okay, who's going to be the one to have oversight

on this? And he jumped right in, because that's his thing.

Now, what it doesn't mean is that whoever has oversight

takes care of everything and doesn't involve the other

person that is a problem. That's why there's no real

CEOs in relationships, because that would be the final stop.

But he gets to come back in our monthly meetings to say,

here's where our finances are, here's some of our

investments. What do you think about these options? Do you

have any other options? You have any questions? You know?

What are your thoughts? So we do collaborate, but he is the

one to make sure all the he brings in all the information

into our meeting. I'm the COO. I like organizing our family,

culture, our schedules, anything related to our

health. I am, I am fully on board with over overseeing,

really, the rest of our life. And I do the same in our

meetings. I give them like, here's the birthdays coming

up. Here's what we're doing socially. Here's the important

things we need to remember in terms of medical stuff and

whatever. And it works, because he doesn't have to

worry about that stuff until I bring it to his attention. I

don't have to worry about the finance till we have our

monthly catch ups, unless he calls an emergency meeting.

And we do that in everything in our life, so that it's very

clear who has the oversight of each area of our life, and

then that person brings the other one in to make

decisions.

Yeah, I I spend a lot of time working

with the companies that I help, helping them build the

right cadence of the right meetings, right we spend a lot

of time on that, getting an organization to work together

efficiently, because you can have too many, you can have

too few. You can have, you know, right the right amount,

but talk about the wrong things. And I was listening to

another podcast, I think of Jordan Peterson, was talking

about he and his wife have like, a 90 minute meeting, I

think, every week, something like that. And he said, from

his opinion, as a psychologist, that marriages

happen whenever you don't have 10,000 fights, right? And so

when, when should we meet? How often should we meet, and what

should we talk about?

Dr. Robin Buckley: Right. I usually suggest with couples,

I love the idea of a weekly meeting, but I work with a lot

of busy couples that would be very challenging. So I say at

minimum once a month. Once a month you designate, and I

also say 60 minutes, because most meetings after 60

minutes, people are tired, and that's when emotions can come

in. And we don't want a lot of emotional reactions in these

meetings. So once a month, you put it on your calendar and

you adhere to it like any other meeting. You don't say,

oh, yeah, we'll just we'll do that tomorrow. It's a meeting

that you two have designated as important, and then

creating an agenda, which I know sounds a little bit too

structured for a relationship, but again, why do we have a

meet? Why do we have agendas in our work meetings? Is to

make sure we cover everything. There's a flow, there's

documentation as to what we've talked about. Why would that

be any less important in one of the most important parts of

our life, which are our relationships. So I tell

couples that what can really be beneficial is either to

create a Google Doc or a shared notes on their phones,

and they add to their agenda throughout the month. So as

things pop up, they put it on on the agenda for

conversation, and this is every. Rethink, Scott from,

you know, the operational day to day stuff like scheduling

and finances, all the way to intimacy and physical

connection, everything that impacts their relationship is

discussed in these meetings, and what it does. And I love

how you reference the 10,000 little fights, is instead of

walking through the kitchen and saying, Oh yeah, by the

way, you know, there was this investment that came up, and

you know, we'll have to talk about that over lunch, which

might interrupt someone's line of thinking they're heading

off to a meeting, you know, and that disrupts everything.

Or, you know, that really irritated me when you did

that. And again, it sets the whole tone for the day. Now

you have a designated place to store this information so it

doesn't get lost, and then ideally an objective place to

have a conversation. Say, you know, a couple weeks ago when

you said that, that really bothered me, and I've been

thinking about that some more, and I want to address that so

we come up with some SOPs so we can avoid that. It also

creates that distance between the incident that sets someone

off and time to actually now have a strategic conversation

about it.

Yeah, there was a tool, I think you could

call it, for lack of a better term, that I loved, not just

for relationship, but also for work that I think a lot of

founders failed to implement. It was called the no other

zone. And so I'm wondering if you could share, what is the

no other zone, and how can it serve us, both at work and at

home? Yeah. Naz,

Dr. Robin Buckley: I love that too. No other zone. No other

zone, is essentially at minimum 10 minutes a day that

a couple sits and connects. Because what we you know, you

probably have done this too, and your relationship. Scott,

you know you you walk by or you come home from working,

like, how was your day Good? How was your day good? And

that's it. Or, how do you think we're doing? Oh, hey,

we're good. That is not an in depth analysis of We're, of

the state of state of the relationship, but 10 minutes a

day where you can actually sit down and talk to your partner,

or not talk to your partner, you're just physically

together. And for the couples that travel a lot, it's 10

minutes where they're they're doing something virtually

together. But I used to joke with our own kids, unless

someone is bleeding or dismembered, you do not

interrupt us in those 10 minutes. And I've had couples

have the most unique places to have their meetings. They've

met in bathrooms for 10 minutes and just sat in the

bathroom together. They've hidden in their cars in the

garage because they they know it's important not to be

interrupted. And our external, internal stakeholders, which

is also in the book, can be consistent sources of

interruption, which then puts the relationship far down on

the list. And the relationship is what started everything. So

if it's really low on the list, what is the viability of

everything else that is impacted in the couple's life?

Yeah, so true. So true. It's great for

your one on one meetings at work, just that, that

dedicated, focused attention, you get so much more out of

it. It's fantastic. So I'd be remiss to not ask this

question, because it's probably sitting in the back

of someone's mind. But does, does everything apply? Or

there are some business practices that should be left

at work and shouldn't come into how we manage our

relationships or our marriage? Yeah,

Dr. Robin Buckley: I briefly mentioned it before. I don't,

I don't see a place for a CEO in a relationship. CEOs, you

know, typically have final assignment or not. They have

to, you know, run it by their board, but that's not

typically how it runs. And actually, you referenced one

Scott that I hadn't thought of the executive assistant. I

don't know if I would use that term as much in a

relationship, but again, I always remind couples, they're

the experts in their relationship. I might be the

expert in terms of how to structure it and strategies

and what works well based on research and based on my

experiences with couples, but they know their relationship.

So I've had some couples challenge the CEO aspect,

mostly around cultural issues and the ways that a couple

wants their relationship to be. And it's not for me to say

you can't do that or you shouldn't do that. It's let's

make sure that all the parameters are in place so

that actually does work, and it doesn't build into a sense

of resentment over time. That's pro those are probably

the best examples I have. What doesn't belong any toxicity or

ineffective leadership, of course, doesn't belong. It

also doesn't belong in business. The things that

don't work in business should certainly stay out of your

relationship, and a lot of couples don't see that.

Wow, I've got one more question before I

let you go here, we'll make sure folks know that you can

get a copy of the book. But what would you say is the

biggest secret that you wish wasn't a secret at all. What's

that one thing you wish everybody watching or

listening today knew?

Dr. Robin Buckley: Well, it's probably not a surprise. What

am I going to say? Relationships are about

strategy, and it doesn't take away the bells and whistles.

And I always consider love and sexual attraction are the

bells and whistles when you have strategy in your

relationship. Relationship that creates the strong

foundation for your bells and whistles to get better and

better and withstand the test of time. So instead of looking

at your relationship with hopes and prayers and wishes,

actually create a strategy and a business plan for your

relationship, and then it will be as successful as you make it.

Yeah, yeah. It's so true. Dr Robin

Buckley, just fantastic. Really, really loved every bit

of this. There are some folks listening. First they want to

get a copy of the book, tell us how we can do that. And

then they may want to know more about the work that you

do and the coaching that you offer. Where can they find

more out about that as well?

Dr. Robin Buckley: All in one place, my website is. Dr Robin

Buckley, all one word, no punctuation .com, and they can

do pre sales for the book. They can also learn a lot more

about my executive coaching for individuals as well as my

speaking. I do a lot of corporate trainings and

wellness or in the corporate environment. So I'm happy to

have a conversation on how I can make your professional and

personal life better.

Fantastic, fantastic. Such a privilege

and honor having you here. Loved this conversation, loved

the book. Can't wait for it to be out and available to the

public. For those of you watching and listening, you

know that your time and attention mean the world to us

as well. I hope you got as much out of this conversation

as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time,

take care.