On today's episode of the Becoming the Big Me podcast we have another special segment to go along with the new Amazon Best Selling book, Becoming the Big Me: The Great Conquest. Your host Djemilah Birnie chats with Cory and JoJo Rankin with R Family strong about their journey through foster care and how they were able to go stronger together and stronger in faith throughout the process.

Cory and JoJo Rankin are a husband and wife duo, parents of five foster parents and the owners of R Family Strong. They work as a team to optimize entrepreneurial marriages and focus on restructuring and eliminating the invisible cracks that entrepreneurship brings to relationships. They work with couples that still have love for each other and help them fortify the connection that they already have and business proof their marriage. After being married for 13 years and fostering over 30 children in their home they have encountered many obstacles on their journey, but they have continued to persevere through each and every one of them. With kids ages 3, 4, 5, 6 and 9 the Rankin household can be a bit crazy at times, but even with the craziness, their family is the biggest blessing that they could have ever asked for. 

This is their story.

Connect

www.rfamilystrong.com

https://www.facebook.com/RFAMILYSTRONG

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To get out her new book visit bit.ly/greatconquest

To Connect More with Djemilah Visit www.djemilah.com

>>Learn more about the Becoming the Big Me: The Great Conquest book visit www.thegreatconquest.com 

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Becoming the Big Me: The Great Conquest is a collection of empowering, motivating, and educational stories that will tug at your heart strings while empowering you to step into your own Big Me potential. From addiction, illness, lack of confidence, loss of loved ones, PTSD, and more the contributors of this book have walked through darkness and emerged victorious.

The Becoming the Big Me: The Great Conquest book has been brought to you by a collection of leaders paving the path of the future in their given fields. Within its pages you will find insight from Djemilah Birnie, Sharon Lechter, Nick Wingo, Dr. Frances Malone, Jenny Emerson, Russel Creed, Jennifer Aube, Valerie Fischer, Cory & JoJo Rankin, Peter Neilson, Kiki Rae, Tanya Milano-Snell, Dannah Macalinga-Pedrigal, and Kira Birnie.

This book was envisioned and brought together by Djemilah Birnie, the founder of Becoming the Big Me.

After overcoming many obstacles that could easily break a person, Djemilah has become passionate about helping others face their glass ceilings and break into the expansiveness of their potential.

Djemilah believes that we are all on a journey... There is never a point in which you have "Made It". Becoming the Big Me is about choosing to step into your greater potential each and every day. It is about learning and sometimes messing up but always getting back up.

This book has been compiled to showcase the journeys of overcoming. However, through this journey it becomes so much more. As each author told their story Djemilah noticed a common thread- something that made all of these amazing humans stand out even when faced with adversity.

Through the process of this book Djemilah discovered what she calls "the secret to overcoming obstacles and Becoming the Big Me." The greatest secret is the steps are simple and we have all heard them before.... the greatest secret is in the actual doing.

This book features; Djemilah Birnie the best selling author of Luna's Balloon: A Little Book About the Little Things, Sharon Lechter the author of Think and Grow Rich for Women, co author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, and an ambassador to the Napoleon Hill Foundation, Nick Wingo the founder behind building Grit, Dr. Frances Malone the founder of Malone Pediatrics and the Intuitive Parents Collective, Valerie Fischer the woman behind the trademark of Brain Science Selling, Peter Neilson the "Hybrid Guy", Jenny Emerson licensed therapist, Russell Creed the founder of Invictus Life, Tanya Milano-Snell who is on a mission to break generational trauma, Jennifer Aube best selling author of the book Naked Wealth, Kiki Rae the founder of Quantum Creatrix, Cory and JoJo Rankin founders of RFamilyStrong, Dannah Macolinga-Pedrigal VA and mother, and Kira Birnie the daughter of Djemilah Birnie and kid behind A Kid's Perspective.

To learn more about the book you can visit, www.thegreatconquest.com

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Hi! I am your host Djemilah Birnie the founder of Becoming the Big Me. I have been building businesses online since the age of 17. I am passionate about discovering the "secrets" of our world and what is the true difference maker. Why is it that some succeed and others do not? What is it that allows people to get back up and keep going even in the midst of hardships? What truly is the power of purpose? These are the questions that rattle my mind.

I love to write and have published some books, some of them have even hit some charts 😲 You can check them out here: http://bit.ly/djemilahbooks

Ready to start playing BIG and step into your Big Me potential by harnessing the power of your mind? Then make sure you join the free Rewire challenge to get all the tools you need! https://www.djemilah.com/rewirechallenge

Do you want to fall asleep faster, rest deeper, and release the stress of the day? Then it's time for you to experience your best nights rest with the Dreamland Meditation Pack! Over 200 minutes of bedtime meditations to quiet your mind, connect your mind to your body, and bring you to your sleepy time bliss.https://www.djemilah.com/dreammeditation

Don't forget to check out the little lady's podcast "A Kid's Perspective" where she answers your questions on all of life's most pressing issues, in her eyes, a kid! ‎https://akidsperspective.us/

In addition to my online offerings I am extremely passionate about giving back to the local community while cultivating community growth. I am the organizer and host of the Wimberley Women's Circle https://wimberleywomen.com/ , where we gather monthly to learn and heal from different community leaders.

I am also the visionary behind Wimberley Moonlight Farms, a small family owned farm and nursery located in Wimberley, Texas. This is a journey that will take many years as we continue to develop, follow along at https://wimberleymoonlightfarms.com/

My partner and I have also put together a local directory for our town in the Texas Hill Country in which I have been having so much joy going to all of the local hot spots to photograph! Learn more at https://www.wimberley.info/

Let's Connect! #allthelinks ⬇

Website: www.djemilah.com

Blog : www.becomingthebigme.com

Podcast : www.bigmepodcast.com

Books : http://bit.ly/djemilahbooks

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/djemilah/

Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/becomingthebigme/

New Book: Becoming the Big Me: The Great Conquest Book: | A Collection of Empowering Stories | By Djemilah Birnie, Sharon Lechter, and Contributing Authors https://www.thegreatconquest.com/

Unknown Speaker 0:04

hello divine souls Djemilah Birnie here with becoming the big me i'm so excited for this special segment of the becoming the big me podcast this section of the podcast is dedicated towards sharing the stories of conquest for some incredible individuals they are also featured in my latest book becoming the big the great conquest in this section of the podcast we will dive deep into each of their stories and their journeys and their hardships from addiction ptsd loss of loved ones and children this segment of the podcast is dedicated towards sharing their stories and in sharing their journeys not only of the hardships but sharing how they overcame to learn more about the author's behind the stories that you're going to hear go to the great conquest.com and if you would like to purchase a copy of the great conquest book you can go to bit.li slash great conquest and without further ado let's dive into the amazing journeys hello hello you

Unknown Speaker 1:36

Unknown Speaker 2:48

thank you that's a great introduction thank you

Unknown Speaker 2:52

they're working on my intro voice

Unknown Speaker 2:55

let's let's just dive right

Unknown Speaker 2:57

in you guys can you kind of bring us back in time and just paint a little bit of your your history and your backstory

Unknown Speaker 3:03

for us

Unknown Speaker 3:05

yeah so we've we've been married for 13 years and i'll go a little bit deeper into our backstory but ultimately our life changed 10 years ago when we moved to vegas to go to physical therapy school that was a start of foster care that was the start of our 10 kids in one year it was a start of a whole lot of change a whole lot of growth a whole lot of failure and a whole lot of teamwork but jojo and i we grew up in very very different circumstances are our parents we're both lower income but i've got two three brothers and sorry two brothers and two sisters jojo also has two brothers and one sister and that was very unique because communication is something that has really defined who we are and our story and our journey is because i didn't know how to communicate when i was younger i played football baseball and i wrestled and so my communication was nothing of value is what are we doing this week what is we need to communicate for a ball and stuff so my family connection was good but it was kind of incomplete because we spend a lot of time really sharing emotions and feelings and hardships and that's something that jojo did a lot of in her home except she was evaluating the relationships and so our beginning started very very differently and she's a we have a lot going on through high school but after after high school is when our journey really really started and so we met through church activity one of my friends from that a church activity marry judges sister and they introduce us and so it's been quite a miracle that we even got together because our relationship started long distance

Unknown Speaker 4:58

and i think the biggest thing because like korea kind of mentioned a little bit was that so growing up were around a lot of dysfunction a lot of interesting relationships i guess you could say but um i would internalize everything and i would put okay i would i would analyze every relationship that i was around because i was so afraid of getting married in the future and so i would analyze everyone's relationship i would put them into two boxes i would put them into this is a happy marriage or not happy marriage so as a child all the way up until korean i really started dating i would put these these everything that i saw in the grocery store i would analyze couples at church everywhere i was i would analyze them and put these things into these boxes and so when cory and i struggled to communicate in the beginning of our relationship because we were long distance i would put these items into the same box and so it was sort of a challenge when we started dating because our relationship was new and we were trying to communicate but our communication styles were so

Unknown Speaker 5:58

off and that that's where our journey really getting started is because we both desire for a loving family we both had a desire to be more than than average we both had an entrepreneur mind and we didn't know it but as we really started to communicate and we our relationship started to develop that's where our story turned because my desire to serve people led me to physical therapy school i had to make a move to go to physical therapy school and that's where our family was built i actually do not even do anything with physical therapy anymore the lord pulled me away from physical therapy three weeks before i was to take my license exam i went a completely different direction in the full time into our business before that i was studying i was navigating the kids and i was doing our business on the side but the lord pulled me away from that three weeks before my test and that now i don't do anything with physical therapy school but physical therapy was the foundation for building our family and so we entered a lot of trials through physical therapy school because i nearly failed out with foster care we learned how to be new parents and just physical therapy as we look back at it now was the source for our family our connection building our family in general so we had a lot of experience through foster care through physical therapy school through judges and nurses as well and to master's degree so we had a lot going on in the last in the last 10 years but our family has built because of one choice to go to physical therapy school

Unknown Speaker 7:43

yeah so i'm curious i'm curious about that jojo i know that you were saying that you had some of these kinds of reservations it sounds like from being in a relationship based on just what you had observed you know growing up so i'm curious how did that kind of transition for you guys because you were long distance and in this day and age that's very very common especially with entrepreneurs to to do the long distance thing how did i'm curious how did that kind of trends for our grow

Unknown Speaker 8:16

absolutely it made us grow so well in a lot of different ways through trial of course of course right but basically because i had analyzed for so long and i had put these into different boxes the one thing that i always saw that relationships that were in my eyes happy they always talked they talked all the time they would talk after work they would talk in the grocery store they would talk all the time so i thought at the time i was like okay so i have to be talking to you all the time and you have to know everything and you got to tell me everything right and we do we do have to tell each other everything basically if you've ever heard of john gottman and the love lab i was doing that from elementary school all the way up like pulling in grocery stores and all that stuff where do you monitor people's behaviors monitor everything but basically so i we had to have the conversation of like i feel broken when you don't talk to me about things when you earn it's not even about things it's just in general he's just not he wasn't a talker his family didn't he didn't grow up and i'll let cory share that in just a second but he didn't grow up with verbal communication right like his communication style was different than mine but for me analyzing all these relationships i thought the only way to have a happy marriage was to talk and to have those verbal communications and so when i wasn't getting that in return i felt broken i felt like something was wrong and so that's when korea and i had to merge our two types of conversations and our two types of communication and actually get on the same page

Unknown Speaker 9:42

and so she was she wasn't broken at all and so her her transformation occurred over six months we talk nearly every day and i really struggled with it for the first little while we were talked for multiple hours after work and things like that but it was really A challenge for me because after five minutes or 10, certainly by 15 minute mark, I was kind of backpedaling I was trying to do whatever I could to get off the phone. And back in the day, when varizen had had the minutes restriction, they had to wait till after nine o'clock to be unlimited. So I did my very best to start the call before nine o'clock. So my time would be saved by my minute limit.

But I did start after nine o'clock. So we

eventually got to the point where I just realized how incredible she was. And I realized how much of a blessing it was for me to be able to talk to her for those moments for those little bit of time, because we only got to see each other maybe once a month, or every six weeks or two months, something like that it was only just a handful of times that we had any face to face interaction. And 1314 years ago, there wasn't, they weren't zoom calls, they weren't video chats, there was just straight call and whatever she was doing on the other side, and things like that. So that was really a missed opportunity from what we have now for connection with Zoom and stuff. But I think it grew because I grew, I started to appreciate my opportunity or talk to someone so incredible that as I started to open up, she started to think that I was different, because I have a tremendous love. For the Lord, I have a tremendous love for service. And I have a tremendous love for connection. And that's where I was missing a lot when I was a kid is because I spent most of my time connecting with my friends or their family. And so once we were able to get that connection, she we got married, we got married very quickly, we dated for 11 months, we were only engaged from February, until May. And still things progressed very, very quickly when I stopped being the burden and allowed our relationship to progress. And so the first three years of our marriage, were incredible. Because we just had a desire to be a team and to grow. But we didn't face any real challenges at that point yet.

And I think at that point, because I was so intentional about like teaching Cory about like, all these frameworks I have learned over the years and how I obviously there are different boxes, and we all understand that now Right? And, and you know, obviously through life and stuff like that. But as a child, I would explain to Corey, everything like, okay, when people are in the grocery stores, I look for this, I look at this stuff. And these are the things that I want to be treated, how I need to be treated. And so these are the things that I feel bring a healthy relationship because divorce is not an option for me, like I won't do it. And so that was the biggest thing for us. And so as we worked through and talked about the different frameworks and the different things to help us, that really helped us be intentional with each

other. So the bottom line is, she allowed me to come a better individual. And as I became better that broke down her barrier, her fear her worry for marriage. And the biggest thing with her fear of marriage and relationships was she's seen so many and she had associated marriage equals problems. And when she realized that I would not be a problem that I would care for her that I would love for her and that we have the same goals of Christ and family and marriages for for a lifetime. Those are some of the things that start to break down those barriers. And I'm so grateful that those barriers were broken down because dating long distance, I was working full time and I haven't been I was about to start going to college. And my intention was I even told her this and she probably wanted to crucify me for that. But I told her this that, oh, we'll go we'll meet people will have like my full intentions were to start college and start interacting with my classmates and see where that lead. But she was so incredible that that didn't happen in a miracle that I never had the opportunity to meet other people and I didn't want to meet other people, the Lord kind of took that desire away from me. And so grateful that I did because I have never met any other person that will drive on the freeway past an accident or crash and pray for him that they'll be taken care of that they won't be hurt that they'll have the financial resources and she just so incredible. I'm so grateful that those miracles were there because I would have missed out on some one and something so incredible. So that's kind of how you broke down that barrier. She forced me to be better. And because I was better she decided okay, marriage is okay.

That's so beautiful. And I think that that's a really important for people to hear. Because you guys showed us, you know, showed all the audience right now. That marriage is not perfect. Y'all were, you know, kind of scheming against each other there for a little bit with your, your, your phone limits, and but you work through it and it's and communicated through it and and that's really what is beautiful about this story because there's nothing in life is perfect and there's gonna be obstacles throughout that journey but if you love the person that you're with, and you're willing to go through those obstacles with them, like it can be absolutely beautiful. So I'm curious, did y'all always want to have a big family?

No, absolutely not. And in fact, I'll share a little bit of that. But um, so I'll get so we had had multiple failed adoptions. We just very strongly felt like our way to start our family was through adoption. And so we decided to adopt, but we became foster Well, first, we started the adoption path, we had multiple failed adoptions. But we felt really strong we we needed to become foster parents. And after, in the first year, we had 10 children. And that was brutal. That's like a child every month. You know, we didn't take 10 at once. It was one child at a time. But the foster care system is a very broken system, honestly. And yeah, can

you can you pause right there real quick, because I know that in your pre interview questions, you mentioned, the first foster care child that you had, you had like no time to prepare. Can you tell us about that?

Yeah, absolutely. So we obviously became licensed, that's a two or three month journey. And you imagine that like, Okay, you're gonna have a little bit of time, our age, when you set your age range in our state, you set your age range, so ours was zero to five. And so we expected Okay, within like, a couple months after our foster care license was open, we would take a child that would give us time to prep, you know, know what we need, but no, I didn't. So we were licensed. And then the next day, we started, actually, that same day, we started getting calls. And we were obviously freaking out, because you usually have nine months to prepare for our child. Usually,

it's even more, it's even more intense than not because we were getting ready for grad school, we had moved from a place where we had stable jobs to a place where we had no job like coaches, a nurse and she didn't have a job lined up. And we just moved here from physical therapists for physical therapy school. And so we moved here in June, or license became official in January 27 2011. And that point, that was a Thursday, I think, and I went to play racquetball. And by time I was playing racquetball for two hours, I had already missed two calls. So before I went to play racquetball, I got a call from the caseworker that said, your license is good, everything's approved, you can start taking placements. I went to racquetball. I missed two calls. And we call them back. They weren't a good fit. But the following morning, we bought a two year old home in our home, we'd never been parents before. We didn't have a clue.

I was watching this child.

Definitely. I was a second oldest. I mean, we had young cousins and stuff. So we knew that everything would be okay. We knew that. Even if we messed up, the circumstances the child was coming from were quite intense. So if the worst thing we can do is this love this child and give them the best opportunity while he was in our home, we had no idea how long he would be there. We had no idea the background, we were just almost like, you have a sibling or a friend or someone that's stuck. And I needed to babysit an emergency. And you've never met this kid before. That's kind of how it was. We didn't know what to do. We didn't know what supplies we needed. We didn't know what kind of car seats we needed. We had the minimum for our licensing requirements. But we had to go to the store for the first time. With a two year old, unload the car. We didn't know how to buckle car seats and things like that. And so that that's a path to answer your question, how we didn't know how to prepare because every scenario, people are pregnant and they start to prepare, they start to get some baby clothes. And then as they learn the gender, they can start to plan. baby showers and stuff like that. We don't even know what gender age or anything

nothing but and the thing is to like we vowed when we started foster care. And before we took the placement number one, anytime that they would close about placement, not just take it we would hang up and talk about it, pray about it, see if it felt right, go meet the child and feel if it feels right. And then second was that we would talk about it and we would try to talk all the way through like what are your fears? What are the things that's holding us back? Because your children can bring a lot of turmoil right like whether you birth it the child or not like they bring a lot of change into your relationship into your home and a lot of contention can start that way. And so again, we just really want it because the child was coming from a really bad situation i mean as foster care they're not children don't just get removed and so we we really talked about like how can we make this the least traumatic for the child and the most loving environment for the child that we can because obviously they need that

imagine having that conversation as someone that doesn't know how to communicate important details i was learning to communicate i was learning how to be a husband and now very quickly how to be a father like i mentioned before the first three years of our marriage were really good but we didn't really have them i mean charles but now i have grad school i have to figure out how to be a dad and i have to have a conversation does this make sense to bring a child into my home i didn't even know how to communicate so you can imagine how challenging that was and jojo would probably be like come on this is you got to say more than i don't know or it's okay that sounds good like she really had to work hard to get information out of me to really i didn't know how to share my feelings

and on top of that we were alone we didn't have any family here where we are and like we didn't know anyone we had just korea started grad school we had no one with no friends foster parents we didn't we had no one like zero we were alone so how did you guys

like i tried to wrap my brain around how did you emotionally like handle this because i know that i i have friends who have dealt with you know foster care and how do you emotionally deal with knowing what those children have been through that you're taking care of how to how like i just can't even wrap my head around how emotionally draining and difficult what y'all have been doing to help all of these children has been for you

oh yeah it definitely has been emotionally draining the biggest thing is like we try to keep each other in check we ask each other what what's your story what are you feeling right now what are you thinking right now and like cory had said he wasn't good at that at the beginning but over time we had to there's no other option we can't we can't bring a child into our home and have a stressful situation they don't need that we need it's our job as parents to get it together and so emotionally we have to be open with each other because we couldn't go to friends we nobody understands foster care so if we were to say a lot of the time we would say you know what i'm really afraid of this and our friends would say well whatever happens happens but that's not comforting that's not helpful so we'd have to bring our situation to each other and really keep each other in check like what are you feeling right now because it is i mean i can't tell you how many nights we've cried ourselves to sleep because a child went home you know because it's not so much that they went home it's the environment how's the environment changed is the child going to come back you know it's a very traumatic thing for children and we've had i mean i would say a lot of our children that we've had over the years have entered foster care again and so it's a very broken system so there's a lot of fear behind it that that you really do have to be intentional with each other and try to create the healthiest relationship with each other but also with the other family like the birth family if the birth family is involved

i have never thought about this before until you ask that question the lord really blessed us so the first 10 children we had was challenging it was emotional but that was the easy part it was it was the other 20 children that really were the emotional ties and what i mean by that is the first hour we have we had for three months and then he went home to another he went to another foster parent foster home where he where he could be with his five year old brother and his seven year old sister and so that was a blessing for us that okay he was in our home and that was a better circumstance than he came from and now he's going to circumstances better than what we can have seems to so he didn't he didn't really have that much of an effect but we had contact with his siblings and they were really really struggling they felt like they felt like they felt like their brother was stolen from him and so to reunite that family wasn't so bad for us and then another couple kids we had were a brother and they went home to an end that wasn't using drugs that was stable job that really knew these kids and so that was okay and then we had a set of three that went on to their dad the mom had the care of them and she's the one that had the children removed and the dad he was working on education and he had employment and so he didn't even know where just the circumstances he didn't know where his kids were and so the state was able to track him down and he was able to care for those kids and that was a good story. So our firsthand weren't so bad, because they were there were short term. And it was hard. But we had some time to process. And one of the things that makes the foster care system broken is the kids are so so many kids in care, not enough resources. When we were doing our training, they said there's 1000 licensed foster homes in our community, and 3000 kids in care. Yeah, and there's just not enough and only 500 Foster, there's just not enough resources. So there's when these children are bounced from place to place, it really makes things more challenging for them and adds to the trauma, different wounds every time. And so the foster care system does the best they can to get placements to get stable stability. But what that looks like is because the way that they do foster care is you're licensed per number of beds. And each bed is having children you can have in your home, and they have different requirements and things like that to determine how many kids you can have by the space in your home and bedrooms and things like that. And so our license looks like we have space for 30. So if we have three kids, then we're not available in the system. But if we have two kids that were available in the system, and so if one child goes home today, and they clear that name out in the system, we can get a call tomorrow. And so we that's one thing we communicated very early, once that first child went to be with his siblings was, we need some time to process we're not just going to turn around and drive to the facility where the visitation center is and and bring another child home, we needed some time to process and so I never thought about that until you ask that question. But the Lord blessed us in a way that the first children that were in our home, we were able to love we were learning how to figure out how to be parents and things like that. And so it was a, it was a second 20 that really became challenging. It's, it's really, really hard when you have a child in your home that for more than a year and your children are bonded. And that's when the emotional struggles really become hard. And and foster parents don't have enough support a lot of times because like you said, they just have such a need that child goes home, that their home, they don't have time to process, they don't have time to take care of it. And so a lot of people think a child going home in foster care that isn't involved in foster care is a really good thing. And oftentimes it is, but it's really a traumatic thing too, for the children. And things like I know, I'll share a story about one of the experiences of just so you see how hard it truly was for us to handle things emotionally. So we had a little girl that was in our home for a year and a half. And we thought it was going to adoption. And then her dad came in the picture. And he did his plan and he went home. But my kids were so bonded to her

that it was a lot of crying for weeks and weeks after she left. And then we had after a couple months, we got another placement and things like that. But it was just so hard for our children. It was so hard for us, you know, do we have to manage our own motional problems, or in struggles and circumstances? Now we have to deal with children that feel like someone special was ripped out of their out of their life. And they don't know why they don't know where they're going. They just know that they won't be able to the hardest part is when you're at work or school and you get a call this child's going home, you have no time to prepare. Yeah, sometimes there was you got to be in this place in one hour. And our kids didn't get a chance to say hi, or those are the hardest times. And so it's it's not easy. It's not easy at all. No.

Wow. So how did you guys how did you guys get yourself to to keep going when the obstacles just seemed too massive? Because I know it's so it can be easy to allow that to crush us. But y'all didn't let that crush you. You kept going you get you're killing it right now. So how did you push through

that? I would say one of our and I'll share a little bit too because so our nine year old now. He was our 10th foster child. And he Cory was in the midst of grad school. So he was in a second year I think. And we had our son for almost three years. And he were in court just about every week. Of course trying to go to school. He's like failing out of school because emotionally we were just like, at our end. And the biggest thing that we kept getting was I'm a God of miracles. And I just like because as foster parents, like there's no rights, there's no rights for foster parents. It's whatever the judge says the kid goes, like, that's how it is. And it was really discouraging, because here we were, like Cory was in grad school, he's about to fail out because he can't do all his tests, because he's in court, because we're trying to keep the style, because we're trying to keep them safe. And it was this big, old, horrible like time for us, it went on for two years of that. And so our biggest thing was how we made it through was just getting those promptings was even little inspiration. Because again, we were alone, like nobody understands foster care, like, it's not like there's a bunch of foster parents that now there because of Facebook and stuff, but like at the time, there wasn't like foster care communities, there's no support groups here. There's nothing really for the foster parents to even bond with each other. So it's a very lonely ride, unless you know, another foster parent, nobody understands it, and you're on your own. Even family, I mean, because extended family and everybody because bonded to these children, you know, and then and then they didn't say goodbye, either. But our biggest thing that helped us was one, we would sit down and check in with each other to we would make sure that we were playing together as a couple. And that when we did feel those feelings of peace, that we would share it with each other because so many times I would just get this prompting of I'm a God of miracles. And he was the way that it did for our son was a complete miracle. It was a complete miracle, the attorney that was fighting so hard for him to leave what actually became a judge, so she was removed from the case. And the other attorney was a what had adopted her own children. And so she was very pro child, not production, not pro birthparent, just pro child. And in this situation, it wouldn't have been detrimental for him to go home. There was still drug dealing, there was still like homelessness, there were still things that I mean, he would have been, and now he's a published author. He's a he's a published author. So it's like the things that he has accomplished in his years, because he was given opportunities is incredible. But it's because so that is how we stayed connected. Because we just leaned on each other and our faith

wanders, there's three additional things that I 100% contribute to our ability to continue, we learned a framework that marriage is no longer 5050, I'm sure you've heard maybe you've said that marriage is 5050 Women marriages, absolutely not 5050, because 50%, that's only half as good as you truly are. You are 100% credible, you're 100% capable of doing hard things, you're 100% needed, you have a purpose. So 100% of an individual, is what the marriage should, should get as well. And so 5050 When I hear that, marriage is two people, so if you're bringing 50%, and I'm bringing 50%, I'm only bringing half of what I'm capable of. And so we learned a framework that marriage is 100 100, you give 100% of the effort and the best version of yourself that you have to give that day. And when your spouse gives 100% of the best that they have to give today. Hopefully, when a day the judge is very low, and she can only give 10 or 20, or 30% of her best version. Hopefully, that's a day where I'm closer to 100%, I'm closer to 70. And if she's having a tough day, and she can give 30% and I can give 75% of my best effort, and I can boost her up, I can love her I can support her I can be her needs and her love language, we're better than 100%. In that scenario, we're 150 or 125%. And that's much better than 100. And so if we, if we think of it as marriages, 5050 will never bring the best version of ourselves. Because when someone's low, that's when instead of turning to each other to be elevated, we often will have arguments or disagreements or feel like people aren't carrying their weight. But as soon as we take score, as soon as there's a mindset shift that marriage is 100 100 you can bring those loved ones, your your children, your spouse, along with you on the days that are hard. So learning that framework of 100 100 was super helpful. Another one that was super helpful is for we made a commitment that however long children were in our home, at least we would love them and so we do foster care we've learned to love at a level deeper than most. And that is allowed us to go forward because there is so many children that need us being involved in miracles. Pray for about each scenario that we take. But I think the biggest thing that has allowed us to continue is my nine year old love every one of these children that came into our home and he would instantly adopt As a brother and sister, it was never a friend. It was never that child. It was never. It was, Oh, I got a new brother, I got a new, I got a new sister, I got to play with him. He had so much love that he gave us the strength to keep going, because he would say, Oh, Mom, I need another brother. Have a sister out there have a brother that is coming to our home. And that alone, like how can you question a five year old say, I got a brother that's coming to our home? You can't. And so those four things, I think is what is given us the ability to push for is just God, our understanding of the framework that when I'm not my best you can make me better.

Wow, oh, you got me got the waterworks going over here. It's so beautiful. Because I I don't know if y'all know about me. But I, I have a nine year old daughter and I was addicted to drugs myself. So some of the stuff that y'all are just sharing has just really moved me today. I have a belief that sometimes, you know, the hardest obstacles for us to overcome. And those hardest things for us to traverse through are what makes us who we are and what give us the best lessons in life. And the most amount of strength in the end. Exactly. Can you can you share with me what y'all are the most thankful for? That you have to learn that you that you have learned while traversing through these

obstacles. I think our biggest thing is, is to well, there's probably a couple of things. But number one, doing family councils. That changed a lot for us. When when life was hard, because when Cory was in grad school, and we were foster parents, I was also in school, I was working full time. And it was really hard. And so if we had family councils, and just was able to say, look, this is my load right now, like, I don't even have enough bandwidth to do dishes. Like how can we lighten each other's load? Because emotionally, physically, whatever we're meeting during that time, it's a lot, a lot of time we're going through these trials, like if you don't have enough bandwidth to even stand up sometimes. And you're just like, you just want to sit there and stare at the wall. But you can't, right. Like we have to get up. We have to do things. But I think that was one of the biggest things for us as we turned towards each other in our relationship, but also with our kids. We couldn't just say you know what, like, sorry, this child went home, I know you felt they were your brother, but just wait till next week when we get another call like Right, like that's not the way life is. We can't just excuse feelings and hope that they pass. And so understanding each other's emotions. And one of the biggest things that that I learned in school was asking the question of what's hard for you. And so if you ask your children, if you ask your spouse, what's hard for you? What's difficult for you? What's a challenge for you? What's uncomfortable for you, any of those types of questions? The amazing response that you get is is incredible, because because you don't sometimes you just don't even expect that that would be their response. I have a little story kind of off topic, but it'll be short, but during COVID, right, like every school shut down it overnight, so kids don't get to say goodbye. You know, every nobody goes back to school. We have an entire year where our kids did not go back to school here. The schools were shut down until I think it was April and we ended in May. So like they had a month of school. So anyway, so our son so we're sitting in the treehouse and we're doing the what's hard for you. And we're sitting in the Treehouse, we're eating popsicles, and I get to my he was in second grade was landwind COVID started second grade, second grade. He's in second grade one COVID started so the schools had just been closed. And I just told him, Hey, you know what, the schools are closed, like, you're not going back to school on Monday. Yeah. And so his I said, So what's hard for you and we weren't on the circle. And my son said, what's hard for me is I'll never say goodbye to my teacher. Right? It's like, Why in the world would that be what's hard? Like I didn't say this what I'm thinking why in the world would that be hard for you? How is that the challenge? I would have thought it would be a friend or like, I'm scared. I don't know what's gonna happen like anything like that. But it was the teacher but if you boil down the teacher, how many adults has failed him in his life? How many I mean, we were the second home as foster parents. Like he not only did he have birth parents fail him, caseworkers failed him other you know, like so many things failed him in his life. Of course an adult not being able to have that closure was his hardest thing. Because he liked his teacher. He had a good relationship with her. She was like a second mom type of thing. You know, like a school mom, you know? like he could go to her he could talk to her and of course it was a hardest thing but i would have never guessed that saying divided with teacher was the hardest thing and so of course with that i was able to get the closure for him we were able to message her and you know have conversations with her but it was like that unknown of oh no another adult failed me that was big and so if you the biggest thing that we learned was having a family councils talking through what are you feeling and yes sometimes teenagers sometimes husbands sometimes people don't want to share what they're feeling so then word it differently and say what's uncomfortable for you what was the challenge today you know instead of how was your day oh it was good

yeah and for me a lot of people say oh the lord will give you more than you can handle your trials won't kill you and i think that's been something that i've learned is that we are incredible we can do hard things yes the lord will guide you and you can do all things through christ and things like that but i have survived 100% of the trials that i've experienced i'm still here i still have another day thank goodness to serve to love and to become the best version of myself and so for me we've been through some things that felt quitting pretty impossible it would have been quite easy to to give up the fact that i graduated pt school with a doctorate of physical therapy during all this is a miracle in itself but there were so many opportunities that we could have quit we could have quit on these children we could have said oh this this one's too hard we can't handle this and things like that there was so many opportunities that felt impossible but we just kept moving a little bit even if it's a half a step even if we can barely get our foot off the ground even if we have to crawl or roll to just move forward eventually struggles will be temporary and so that's the biggest lesson that i learned that i can do incredible things that i can become better and that trials don't have to be something that is negative they can be something that makes me better i'm not a business owner i'm not a present husband and father if i don't navigate foster care if i don't navigate nearly fell out of pt school if i don't know i'm not who i am today i'm not having the impact without those experiences and so once i learned that life doesn't happen to me i'm not a victim how life happens for me these experiences that i have whether they're hard and they're not pleasant they're not something you wish on your worst enemy

there have set me up for it and so i just one example of that is i don't do anything with physical therapy anymore now and grad school is so so so expensive i have more debt for physical therapy school than i do on my mortgage and that is just something that happened and i for periods of time through this i question god why did i have to experience this why did we have to move for physical therapy why did i have to nearly fell out and now i don't even use it why can i just go straight to serving families but we wouldn't have if we don't if i don't go to physical therapy school we don't move from utah nevada we don't ever start foster care we don't serve these children that some that stayed forever through adoption all five of our tools were adopted others that went home to better circumstances we don't have these experience without physical therapy being the foundation physical therapy is actually the source that led us into our business because we were at a physical therapy conference when we decided that we have skills that the lord has blessed us with that can serve others and we became entrepreneurs it was because of a business physical therapy conference and so now that i look back at it i'm so grateful for physical therapy for getting in because it's quite intensive and get into physical therapy school when i was an average student so the fact that i got into physical therapy school i made the connections i have through that conference and through the business and now we don't have family around but we've had family in our entrepreneur space that we've created that have bonded us that have really carried us through these things so my biggest takeaway is life doesn't happen to you it happens for you when we can change our mindset from scarcity or this sucks why is this happening to me poor me poor me and like a victim mentality to life is happening for me who can i serve what can i learn where can i grow that has helped us get to where we are today and that has helped us to be the for me to be the husband and father that my children need me to be judges quite unique and quite special and she's way out of my league as far as being great and so my ability to not look at oh this happened to me why me why is good thing why bad things Haven't good people, those kinds of things. That's my mindset. We quit a long time ago. But as we learned that life happens for us. Now, these trials that my kids had to experience, learning how to communicate, so I could take care of those that are, depending on me, has really been a blessing. And we can look back timeline this tacked on to this. And because we have this trial, we were prepared to navigate this trial. And if we take out some of those trials, that was too overwhelming, I wasn't I didn't have the character, I didn't have the strength that I needed to endure some of these additional trials. And so it was a building block on my challengers. And people hear entrepreneur space talked about all the time that your mess becomes your message. And things were quite messy for us for a long time do physical therapy school, there was a four year period to physical therapy school that our marriage really was tested. And what happened was, as we grew together and not apart, no, navigate, we dominate anything, there's going to be no trial that is going to be too hard for us, because I now know that these experiences are working for me.

That's absolutely beautiful. And I believe exactly the same thing. I believe that everything that we go through in our life happens for a reason, even if we can't see what that reason is right in the moment. But I'm curious, because you guys are doing so much right now. Like y'all have your books, I know there's a podcast, there's your helping families. And I know that all of this sparked from you traversing through this, and this this decade of foster care and helping all of these children and, and growing together as a couple and as a family and your passion to help, you know, expand that to others. How did how did entrepreneurship happen for you guys?

It kinda it was again, another like, prompting, we Cory had mentioned before, like we were on, we were in Florida, and we were around the beach, no kids with us five, you know, all five kids were at home, like, we were like, vacation of our life, right and still hang out at the beach, do whatever we want. Well, we were at this physical therapy Conference, which we're really good friends for. Basically, everybody in there,

oh, I'll let you continue. But we really have to back up even a step farther than that. 2017, we experienced a major tragedy in our community and JoJo was working at the hospital. And that night, she got an impression your mission in life is to say family's super confusing, because we're foster parents were in grad school, we're doing active at church, we're active in our community, we didn't know what that meant. And then we needed a year and a half of silence and faith and trust, to get to 2019 When we were at this conference, and now you can continue on the beach with outside kids and never stepping foot.

Like I, I receive that your mission in life is to help families a few years prior, and I was like, well, that's kind of strange, because I was already in my undergrad, undergrad to be a marriage and family therapist, like I was on the path we had been foster parents for I don't even know how many years at that point. And so I was really confused. I was like, okay, but I'm already trying to do that. But then when we were at this physical therapy conference, we could not we didn't even go to the beach, because we were so consumed by, we knew we needed to start our business. And over the past 13 years, because we've overcome so many things. And because we like as a child, I had worked through all these frameworks, and I would analyze couples. And so we were really, really, really intentional with our relationship. Everybody would always come to us and ask us, you know, marriage advice. So their kids would come play, and our kids would go play with them. And they would sit and get marriage counseling, right. I wasn't a marriage counselor. And so at the time, we just, it was, again, one of those things where we knew, we knew even though we didn't want to, we knew we needed to start our business and it needed to be coaching families. And so one of the and that was one of the biggest things is we started coaching, typical couples, like we always had, right, like we had always had generic couples come over and ask us how to stop fighting, you know, basically go from divorce line all the way up, you know, to happy and, and healthy and thriving and all that. And so we started coaching those couples,

when she says generic, she's talking about the people we love the most our family, our friends that we've developed here in Vegas without any people and so they weren't just strangers were the people that were saying, oh, yeah, you guys are great. How do you handle that? But it was people that knew our story. It was people that knew our experience, and it was people that we love. And they would come to us and say you don't have any problems. Your marriage is perfect. Can we get that anywhere would ask us your marriage is perfect. How do you do it? What can we do? What can we change? And then sometimes we would tell them things and they would implement and they come back home The last two weeks have been so great since our talk. Other times, we'll just say, oh, man, things have been so much worse. And we asked him that you do the things that we talked about? No, then why are you saying that we have a perfect marriage, and you're not willing to copy the things that we're doing. And so that's kind of where we were, we had practice. And I don't mean to cut you off. But I think that was something that was very important is when she said, these common marriages, it's people we love people that trusted us people that didn't know all the details, because we didn't let them in because we save our trials for each other and not going outside of the source. But they knew we were struggling with foster care, they knew physical therapy was a challenge. They knew all these different things, they knew our emotions, when a child would go home, and the new one would come and our kids were friends and stuff like that. So they it was it was no secret that we were struggling. But then they say that, Oh, your marriage is perfect. You have no problems. It was like, we have plenty of problems

on the floor, but just kidding. But um, but yeah, so then. And so we started coaching more couples, we started having entrepreneurs coming to us. And and at first, we were a little bit confused on because there there are core cracks, as we call them. There's there's different invisible cracks and relationships that can either be fixed really quickly, and they just make you thrive, like the things that Corey and I implemented, you know, like family councils, things that we did, through our trials, eliminating those invisible cracks, and then moving forward. But what we were finding was that entrepreneurs had different cracks than like corporate America marriages, and all the couples we had always coached. And so we started really dissecting, like, what's different than them. And so we actually discovered that entrepreneurial relationships, whether they're new beginning entrepreneurs, or very, very high end entrepreneur marriages, they're different. And it's, it doesn't matter if they work together in the business, or there's a single entrepreneur home, they just have core different problems. And so once we were able to dissect this, the the results we were getting for people was incredible. And we started dissecting into four different category categories for different pillars. And we would talk about, okay, it's either a marriage crack, which would include like intimacy, physical or emotional, it would conclude like communication, or is it a home crack, which is like your roles, your, you know, the chores, parenting, the children, all of that stuff? Or is it a personal Are you trying to develop yourself, but your spouse isn't necessarily involved in that, just like with Cory earlier, he had to solve his own individual crack with communication, because that was his core crack, that was a personal issue. And then, and then there's the business cracks. And those are things like setting boundaries, allowing yourself to have the family time at certain times and letting your spouse be involved in what they want to be involved in and setting the family targets with the business targets, but not making it so they're separate, but involving everybody into things that they want to be involved with, and communicating business items to your spouse, when, like, let's say if you need to work later, like so it doesn't create fights. And so, as we were working with these couples, they started getting 10k months when they were about to quit having their job or having their business because they were finally able to bridge the gaps in their home and get rid of that wedge that was in there. And so it was pretty incredible. And so that's why we work with entrepreneurial relationships. That's kind of the gist of why we started doing what we do

well, and to add on to that, we are now four years removed from that impression that your mission in life is to save families initially. Few years ago, we thought saving families was from divorce, we thought saving families was about not fighting it about really challenging relationships. But the ideal couple that we serve is a couple that still loves each other. That's nowhere even close to the divorce line. And what we've learned four years removed from that prompting, and that's a lesson in faith and of itself, but four years removed from that guidance in the Lord that your mission is to save families. We're not saving families from divorce, we are saving families from their business. The couples that we work with, we help them focus on the home, we help them shop better at home. So they can be the best version of themselves for their spouse for their children, which translates into better performance in the business. They're more productive, they're more efficient, they're more creative in these kinds of things. And that's where the wanting to quit to attend K month came from is because we've removed a lot of those barriers. We didn't teach them any business stuff we could teach them how to take care of their family their business was encroaching was moving was really the source of a lot of their trauma and stuff. And so there's a lot of entrepreneurs that are overwhelmed and not fulfilled because their relationships at home are suffering So, that's been a huge blessing to be four years into that prompting and know that we're not saving families from divorce. We're saving families from the business business. So we we help entrepreneurs business proof their marriage. And what I mean by business proof is, every entrepreneur that I know, started their business, or most of them started the business. So they can have freedom, both financially and time freedom, so they can better provide for their family. Or, like, for instance, a health care provider wasn't happy with the way that things were serving, they provided so they can have a better impact says they can treat patients a better way. And so entrepreneurs, some of them have just grown into that. And it's been part of their story in their purpose. But the majority of entrepreneurs intentionally started their business for their family, for the time freedom to get those opportunities. And what happens as they go so hard in the business, and they believe this myth, if I just work harder in the business, my family will be blessed. And in doing so, Southern family becoming blessed, their family becomes second place, and now they have spouse that is really have a hard time supporting the business. The entrepreneur thinks, Oh, my subpop my spouse doesn't support me. They don't like the business. No, no, no, they don't like being second place. And they can't support the business as a second place. Wife, they can't support the business as a secondary. For your children, you you can't be the best father if your children are getting the leftovers because you've given everything to the business. And so that's weird, where it's not very clear what saving families looks, saving from the business, saving you as an entrepreneur from having your children on the playground, and say, Oh, my dad, he's a no show dad, he misses every sporting event, everything. Because there's two options. When you're an entrepreneur and you have young children, your children can tell their friends that Oh, my dad is a cool dad. Because he's there He's present, he gives me the attention, he gives me the time. Or he can say my dad is no show, he works so much. He misses everything. He's not home for dinner. He's not a when he's not home, when I go to sleep and those kinds of things. And so that is very tough. I don't want anyone to have that experience. If they were overheating their child on the playground at school, or my dad is not present, my dad is a no show. That's what happens unintentionally. For a lot of entrepreneurs, they go so hard in the business, but their relationships at home, I'm casual, become intelligent. I like to say that casualness equals casual bliss, the relationships that we have meet intention, they need purpose, they need action, they need work to maintain them, so they're good. And so when we become casual, and our date, night starts to fade, our family meals start to fade, and those kind of things.

That really takes over. And the reason we talked about cracks is because if you think about a foundation, or sidewalk, you see a crack in the sidewalk. It's not a big deal, you can still walk on, it's visible, and there's the jump, the damages might grow. But as these cracks become more on the sidewalk starts to split in these tree roots start to elevate, now you've got a sidewalk, that is a danger, that is the problem. And that's why we focus on tracks because you have invisible cracks, and you have visible, invisible and visible both, you have cracks that you know are a problem or, you know, need some more attention. And then you have things that are the source of contention or the poem, but you do not say or you don't recognize it, or you've blown it off like that and stuff, our experience. through foster care, you nearly fell out of PT school had put us in a mindset where we could build connections. And as we built connections, we learned our true purpose. And everything that JoJo and I do is to make sure that children have the best opportunity to be raised in a two parent household. We know with our experiences, we've seen a lot of destruction on families. So we know that when possible, a lot of times the best outcome is when a child has the support at home and have a solid foundation and not worried about divorce. They're not worried about having to spend time with this parent or that parent and they're just not have this time. And we know that there's circumstances where there's single parents, and there's a lot of single parents that are incredible and extra better parents than those that are married and stuff. But we want we want to close that gap. We want children to be raised to their home. And our method is to do it from the top down if we can build stronger marriages will build stronger families. If we can take entrepreneurs that are unfulfilled, that have a huge purpose that are solving problems and having a huge impact for other people, but are unfulfilled, their impact is minimized. And so if we can build a stronger family, we can build stronger entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs. I believe a two is going to change the world entrepreneurs solve problems in they are the ones that will to help us navigate a lot of this chaos in the world and so we need entrepreneurs performing at a very high level and so our method for that habit is strengthen the marriage work from the top down as a marriage becomes stronger the parent child bond becomes stronger as the parent and child bond becomes stronger the siblings become stronger and what happens with that trickle down effect is now you have children that are confident now you have a child like mine who was homeless and on and off the streets and now he's about to go into he's not even in kindergarten yet and he's just about to read and stuff because he's been in an environment where he's done left where he's had support and where he's had the confidence to knowing and that that's the story of my my four year old he's been in pre k he's been in school he's just about ready to read i'm gonna have four years of kindergarteners with the edge i just finished kindergarten for the first round i have a five year old that's going to start kindergarten in a couple weeks my four year old because of his birthday won't start kindergarten this year but he's ready to he could outperform probably in any of the kids in kindergarten and i'm not saying that in a prideful way or bragging but i'm just saying that as an example of what happens when children have a solid foundation this child enter our home with a mother who was homeless who was using drugs who was depressed at 16 months old that couldn't communicate because he had so much trauma in his life and now he's had the support he's had the therapy he's had the things and now he's a four year old it's just about ready to read and he knows everything like he's way more qualified for kindergarten and he has one more year to learn to grow and that's what happens when families are strong when we put our focus on taking care of things at home first of allow the business to be second we have much more powerful people

i love that and i have a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to this show so i'm curious if you were to give just one i know that it's more convoluted than this but if you were to just give one piece of advice to the entrepreneur parents that are listening what's one thing that that you would advise for them to help build that family relationship

um i would say the four c's and so the four c's is communication council calendar and commitment and so what i'm talking about so a council have family councils talk about the things that you need the challenges that are coming up the struggles that you have so that's the council every give every family member the opportunity to share their needs to learn about what's going on in the business because what happens for entrepreneurs is they say oh this is a launch week this is a busy week scaling this is i'm an accountant and this is tax season whatever it is there's these periods where we're just not going to be in the home we have to work a little bit longer our kids don't have our time and attention and a lot of times our family doesn't know when those long days is an entrepreneur our spouse doesn't know if we're going to be home for dinner that night and so a family council gives you the opportunity to get everything on the same page to make sure everyone participates everyone has an opportunity to share their struggles to share what they're worried about what they're concerned and then calendars the next see put your family on the calendar first as an entrepreneur in most scenarios you have a pretty good control of your calendar or that's something you're progressing into to get that freedom so if i know my son has football practice on fridays and games on saturdays my calendar is blocked off for football practice on fridays and games on saturdays nobody even if they wanted to can have access to my timeframe on my calendar because that's my family time i know that we have a meeting for the children have speech on tuesdays and thursdays my calendars 100% blocked off for that and those are things that if i had to pass that burden on to just jojo she would be overwhelmed she wouldn't be able to be the mother that she wants to be so me as an entrepreneur when i put my family on the calendar first it goes a long ways that prevents them or at least it's a good start from preventing your family from being second place so that's that's the two c's the council and the calendar and then the next point is communication just say when things are hard say when things need to change and then commitment just be committed to doing more being more serving in a way that takes care of your family first, commit to your family, and not to the business. I'm pretty confident. And I would challenge anybody that wants to doubt me on this that if you will put God first, your marriage and your family second, your business will be significantly better. As the third place if your business is third place, and all the other things are in order first God and your family, your business will accelerate. And I would challenge you that if you are struggling in your business, if you're not having the revenue that you want, or you're stuck, or you're not scaling, see, are you one to three with God family in the business, or are you three to one, the business than the family than God, because if we neglect our spirituality and our growth and our connection with God, and we neglect our ability to be with our family, and take care of them and really build bonds there, our time is limited. And so we can always make more money, but we can't always make more connection with our home. So the fourth C is the commitment and connection, they kind of go one by one. And so I guess you could call it five C's there because you have commitment and connection that I kind of wrapped into one. But that's what I would say, for an entrepreneur Dojo probably is something that is syntheses. Quite amazing. But if you don't do that, if you will make sure that your boundaries are in line and your priorities in order. Because you have to take care of yourself first, you cannot take care. You can't fulfill on a high level if you're barely able to get out of bed or if you are so tired that she can't even have decent conversations, stuff like that. So take care of your family first.

And I would also add to that, with the four C's, I would identify what cracks are creeping into your relationship, whether it's a personal relationship, whether it's with you yourself, is it your home? Is it the roles that your spouse is having to do everything? Is it? Are they doing all the dishes? All the parenting all the bathing all the nighttime routine? Are they doing all of that? Are what cracks are seeping into your stopping you to progress? Is it business cracks? Do you need to set better boundaries? Do you need to have a hard stop time and communicate that with your spouse? Is it individual? Are you feeling like you're failing in your business, which is making it so it's including in your home? Like? Where are you what cracks? Is it that you I personally need to improve on how can you fix your own cracks? Or if you need help with cracks? Obviously, that's why we're here but like, what can you identify that is seeping into you being becoming the best version of yourself as a spouse or as an individual. Because if you're able to identify those things, it helps you grow stronger in your business. And it also helps with these four principles that Corey had

taught a small crack hasn't destroyed your foundation, but a major crack that starts to interfere with structure that starts to interfere with stability. And so if you can identify the cracks and help and get the help that you need, whether it's a coach, whether it's a new team member on your business, whether it's to offload some of the tasks that you're doing for the VAs, whether it's saying no so you can I have more opportunity to say yes to the things that proficient mission forward. Those cracks are something that we can change. And I want to tell anyone that there is no shame in becoming better identifying these cracks is keeping your foundation strong. If these cracks are ignored, Finchley will have wedges in our relationship. And we'll get to a point where our structure, our stability is starting to crumble. And that's the last place anybody wants to be as a foundation that's poor in the business foundation that's pouring the relationship, foundation of self belief that you're not good enough. If our foundation starts to crumble, we won't be stable enough to support other people. And so I think us as entrepreneurs, we have egos we have reputations that, hold it under control. I'm a problem solver, and I've got it under control. And so a lot of times there can be shame in growing but if you identify your cracks, whether that's a new coach or just freeing up your time, you're growing and there's no shame in growth and entrepreneurs should expect to grow day in and day out, especially week over week and month over month, certainly year over year. demystifying cracks is an opportunity for growth and growth is something everyone needs.

I love the way that you that the terminology that you use with the cracks in the sidewalks because I tell people you know, just awareness but I might steal this crack terminology because it's because it's a visual representation of it and that's just so beautiful. I'm gonna get off of this call and sit down with my partner and write down a list of our crags

That's one of the biggest things too. And if you if you can totally take that that's totally fine. But if you we we were talking about Carl Jones, I don't know if you guys know or not she speaks at Funnel Hacking live. She's amazing, amazing. One of our closest entrepreneur friends, and we were talking about these cracks, because we do date nights and Wednesday night for them. And we were talking about these cracks. And she was like, what? Imagine that these, you know, those those bowls, I think they're Chinese bowls where they break them on purpose. And they rebuild them with gold. Yeah. So it is basically like that every relationship, there's no such thing as a perfect marriage, like, everybody would always talk about our marriage being perfect. But there's no such thing as a perfect marriage, we all have to learn, we all have to grow. We all have trials like, but it's how we create our relationship. It's how we let these cracks either build us or destroy us. And so if you take that bowl, and you every crack that you fix, every crack that gets better becomes like gold. So you become this unique bowl that no bowl is the same. But it's amazing. It has gold in it, and it

it's valuable. It's a decoration. And yeah, it is something amazing. And so, cracks are much easier to repair when they're small, and they haven't affected the foundation yet when they haven't impeded on the stability of whatever it is. And so just identify those cracks now. And that's why we talk about invisible cracks. Because here's a crack that I'm sure most of you have never thought about. If you're a male, and you feel like you're intense intimacy is not as frequent as you want. I'm pretty confident that the reason that is is because your connection, your emotional connection with your wife, or your significant other, has faded. And that's an invisible crack that most people aren't associating with, I'm working so much in the business. So I'm not having one on one time with my spouse, and my wife, my doesn't feel connected to me, she's overwhelmed with the kids. She doesn't want to be touched hug or handheld or anything, or even a deeper level of intimacy, if she doesn't feel connected for you if she doesn't feel valued. But a lot of people don't associate that with, oh, this is why how of the circumstances I am. Because it's a crack that appeared here. And so man, if you want to increase your intimacy, pay attention to how are you caring for these amazing women in your life, and taking care of them in a way that they feel protected, that they feel emotionally safe and connected to? And if fear of intimacy is fading, evaluate that see if that patching that crack, before it becomes a huge wage changes things for you. And so that's the same thing with any. That's the most extreme example that I can share. Is that something that people relate to? And it's something that evaporates very quickly in a lot of relationships that are overwhelmed that are overworked. So just pay attention to how you're treating people.

Yeah, I mean, Mike drop Corey, like you hit the nail on the head with Darwin. And that's something I wish that more men would understand. Thank you for sharing that message. You guys, this has been absolutely an incredible interview. And I know that our audience has received immense value from y'all already. But you have you have so much more to offer the world more than this, you know, hour long interview. Y'all have your books, y'all have your Facebook group, y'all have your programs, can you tell people like let us into your world? What what do you have available for people? How can people connect with you? Yeah, so

there's a there's quite a few things. And I'll share a little bit and then I'm sure Cory will have something. But first of all, just get started, you can all you can join our Facebook group, strong business, stronger marriage, we have our podcast, strong business, stronger marriage, we have a marriage tracking show. But one of the things that we enjoy doing for couples is we do date nights. Before we will coach couples, obviously, not every couple is the right fit for us. And we're not a right fit for them. Some couples need deep therapy. But for the most part, for entrepreneurs, it has been incredible to see how their business and their relationship and their whole home changes when they just change a couple things. And so we do we do date nights for a lot of couples. And basically what it is, is it's a one night where we go through zoom, we teach a principle we have an activity for them. And they're able to have that time alone and bonding and create Rhys basically restructuring a lot of things in their relationship in an hour. And so that is something that for your listeners would be willing to give out for free. And so if you want to part of that, you can definitely reach out to us.

You can message us on Facebook, but probably the best place to join us and come by is we have a Facebook group called strong business, stronger marriage and it's for entrepreneurs who are married or in a serious relationship or engaged and if that's you, or your spouse or your significant other then come play with us there we share a lot of values. We're just starting a brand new show called marriage hacking in were breaking down some of these cracks that successful entrepreneurs had one of the growth that ways they filled those cracks and sharing them for you in quick interviews we do have a podcast called strong business stronger marriage that is about to undergo a major transformation because we've learned a better way to surf through the cracks and so strong business stronger marriage podcast on itunes or anywhere else you find your podcast those are two best places if you want our books on the one that i'm most proud to sell is my nine year olds book because he's a published author from seven years old and that's on amazon called will you be my friend every book that sold there he gets every penny of it so i like to promote that book because i don't know very many nine year olds that are getting him income because of the work they did two years ago but if you want one of our books we have journals we have a book for entrepreneurs that has a few tips that you can implement some of the things we talked about if you just type in cory rankin and rankin is ra n k n in korea co roi if you just type that in on amazon all five of those options will appear and you can get them in for whatever makes sense first of all journals couples journals a book for entrepreneurs a children's book about emotions so those are the places that you can join us and as we get to know you as we start to get your story you might be a good fit for our coaching program or you might be a good guest for our podcast or marriage hacking show come into our world through our facebook group and then introduce yourself there and introduce yourself to us message us through the group and we'll see how we can serve you because life is about doing and being and becoming an the better to our connections are the better things are at home the better we can serve those that we want and when we serve people on a higher level we make more money and that is money is a tool for entrepreneurs to have a bigger impact a lot of times people say money makes you evil or money's evil or money makes you a jerk but if you're a jerk before you had money you'll be a jerk afterwards but if you're someone that's humble and someone that has a heart of service and love and as you make more money you'll have more opportunities more tools to have a bigger impact so come play in our world through our facebook group purchase those books on amazon or just connect with us because we love connection jojo and i find that our greatest joy in serving others whether that's each other whether it's your family or whether we help you restructure a few things so you can have a thriving marriage a lot of us myself included on certain things we settle we settle for average you settle being mediocre and none of us are mediocre we're all pretty great and so if you feel like your relationship is good then let's come make it great if you feel like your relationship is struggling let's get to a point where it's good and the thing that jojo and i do is no fix anything we don't save anything we restructure so we take what you're already doing make a few adjustments so you can do it better and every entrepreneur they love systems they love automation they love to take what they're doing and make a few adjustments to do it better and that's what we will help you do we'll take your circumstances we'll take what you're already doing well and give you a few things so you can do it better restructure and that's why we talk about business proofing your marriage we help you restructure the chaos of life to business proof your marriage because when your marriage and your family is the first priority you're not the business isn't taking over it's not making you question why did i start this or things like that and so when relationships are thriving if life's incredible life your marriage can be magical i don't know and i don't care what your beliefs are what you've heard or what your experiences of marriage are the absolute truth is that marriage can be magical even if your marriage is currently a challenge or your relationships are currently a challenge they have potential for growth they have potential to make a few adjustments and become great yes i understand there's toxic relationships and abuse is never acceptable but anything short of that we can make progress and

we have the potential to be great because we are children of god we have a divine nature that we can be great and as we take our greatness and match it with another person and make a great team and a great family a great business an impact that's how legacies are built is becoming better doing more serving more increasing your impact building better relationships and that's where you build legacies and so if that's interesting to you then come join us in our facebook group i know that was a long explanation but ultimately we just want families to be better everything that we do is stronger families there's not nearly enough love there's not enough nearly enough kindness and there's not nearly enough service in the world today and if we can add all three of those to the relationships will become a much better entrepreneur will become a better friend a better brother sister mother father husband whatever whatever hat you want to wear you'll become better when you love more when you serve more and when you communicate better

according yes that was a long explanation but that's okay because you can feel your heart and you can feel your soul in every single word that you just said so you guys if you weren't listening and you want to connect more with cory and jojo as always i put all of their links in the description down below so that if you want to be lazy i did the work for you you can find them very easily just tap on that description box and pop on over to their group i know that you guys will be left in good hands

thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of the becoming the big money podcast i know that you found value in hearing this story today and i would love if you could show your support by going and grabbing a copy of our book and you can do so by going to bit.li slash great conquest you can also go to www dot the great conquest.com for more information about each of the individuals involved in this process thanks again for tuning in