Sammi Jaeger is a creator, entrepreneur, and freelance integrator. She is the founder of Fuel Collective, which empowers couples to create thriving relationships, and co-host of the Date Forever podcast. She is borderline obsessed with the way the quality of our relationships impacts the quality of our lives, and she uses her unique blend of knowledge about business, relationships, and contribution to work, towards creating a better world. Sammy is a huge advocate of the UN Global Goals, and knows that the key to making true global progress starts with the quality of our relationships.

Today Sammi joins Christine to discuss her passion for giving couples the proactive tools and resources they need to keep their relationships fueled and prevent them from breaking down, rather than taking a reactive approach once your relationship is already experiencing difficulties. She talks about the stigma of seeking relationship guidance for married couples, the pressure to uphold the illusion of a perfect union on social media, and the marketing challenge of appealing to an audience who may not realize they have a problem yet. She details the experience of launching Fuel Collective with her husband, Nathan, starting their podcast to learn as much as possible from relationship experts and psychologists, and what it’s been like to live in lockdown and run a business together through the pandemic. Sammi encourages entrepreneurs who are working with their spouses to define their roles from the start. She also tells Christine about giving 20% of their profits to pre-vetted education projects through the B1G1 (Buy One, Give One) organization, as well as their involvement with The Global Goals initiative. Finally, Sammi reflects on how building better relationships can build a better world, and tells listeners about Fuel Collective’s exciting courses and products to come. To learn more about Fuel Collective’s movement toward better relationships, visit FuelCollective.com.au or listen to the Date Forever podcast.

For more information, and other episodes on companies and entrepreneurs who give back, please visit TheGiveBackModel.com. That’s where you can also let Christine know about companies you’ve found that give back, and check out The Give Back Model merchandise, where $5 for every hoodie sold goes to charity. Thanks for listening!

Episode Highlights:

• ● Sammi flips the model of Relationship Coaching from reactive to proactive
• ● Sammi and her husband noticed many of their close friends were already going through
• breakups and divorces by their mid- to late-20s
• ● They noticed that these couples did not have models or tools for how to have a healthy
• relationship
• ● They found plenty of resources for how to find a partner and mend your relationship
• after it’s already hit a rough patch, but they noticed a lack of information for couples who wanted to keep their relationship fueled and prevent it from breaking down in the first place
• ● There is still a stigma around seeking relationship guidance for married couples
• ● People still believe that you meet ‘the one’ and love is all you need

• ● Couples try to uphold the illusion that they have a perfect relationship and do not admit to hardship or seek support
• ● Sammi’s metaphor about calling the fire brigade - you call them as soon as the fire starts, not after it’s already engulfed half your house in flames
• ● Marketing challenge of appealing to an audience who may not realize there is an issue in their relationship yet
• ● The Date Forever podcast is all about making time to date yourself and your chosen person forever, through all of life’s big events and commitments
• ● John and Julie Gottman of the Gottman Institute emphasize the importance of quality time with your partner, and creating new and exciting experiences together
• ● The idea for Fuel Collective came first
• ● They launched the podcast so they could speak to experts in the field and learn as much
• as they could, as their professional backgrounds are not in psychology or relationship
• counseling
• ● They have a membership model community full of people who are actively living the
• methodology of refueling their relationships with intention
• ● Their business offers guidance for all different facets of relationships that do not
• necessarily fall under ‘Relationship Coaching,’ including having difficult conversations,
• creating a household budget together, and navigating relationships with in-laws
• ● They launched their business just before the pandemic and have also been living in
• lockdown together through this entire experience
• ● It allowed them to acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses as individuals, which has
• had a beautiful impact on their relationship
• ● Her advice to entrepreneurs who may be working with their spouse - make sure you
• define the roles and responsibilities based on your individual strengths from the start
• ● Sammi and Nathan are also open to delegating and have a small team of 5 to help
• ● They have built giving back into their business model from Day One
• ● B1G1 (Buy One, Give One) is their preferred giving platform
• ● B1G1 helps small- and medium-sized businesses achieve more social impact by
• embedding giving activities into everyday business operations
• ● Business pay a membership fee which covers administrative costs, then 100% of their
• contributions go toward a pre-vetted charitable project
• ● Fuel Collective donates 20% of their profits to support education projects, as they believe
• access to education is a basic human right
• ● According to ConcernUSA.org, barriers to education include lack of toilets, harvest and
• market days, child marriage, conflict and war, climate change and unpaid teachers
• ● It’s a very complex global issue
• ● Fuel Collective is also involved with The Global Goals, which highlights 17 worldwide
• issues
• ● Having better relationships means we can focus our energy out and dedicate more time
• to helping these 17 global issues

Quotes:

“My husband and I were in our mid- to late-20s, and we already had friends who had been through some pretty horrific breakups, and in some cases, divorce.”

“What we noticed in this pattern was that a lot of the people in these relationships had either come from family homes where they hadn't seen a healthy, happy, thriving relationship, or their parents were in some sort of relationship, but it wasn't necessarily what they were trying to model.”

“They'd gone about trying to make a relationship and a life together without the tools that they really needed to do that.”

“I kind of think of it the same way that you go to the gym to prevent a lot of health issues. We're thinking about Fuel Collective in that same way - What can couples do, day in day out, to keep their relationship fueled up so it doesn't break down?”

“We need love. [But we also] need aligned values. And we need a commitment to go in the same direction, all of those things. But these couples are trying to hold up the fairytale version or their social media presentation of their relationship. So they don't ask for help. And then when they do ask for help, they've already been in pain for a really long time.”

“This is the marketing challenge of trying to talk to an audience who maybe don't realize that they have a problem yet, or they've got an absence of conversations, which is hiding the problem.”

“The concept of the show, Date Forever - it's about dating yourself and your chosen person forever and ever. And it being an active and proactive intention to make room in your life, for your romantic partner, for the person that you've chosen to do life with, and actually making time for them.”

“John and Julie Gottman from the Gottman Institute have done so much research on relationships. And it's one of their fundamental bases of advice: Regular quality time... The idea of dating forever, and creating experiences and new experiences with your partner, and in turn, receiving new experiences from your partner is such a gift.”

“[Husband Nathan and I] started talking about this idea of being proactive. And, you know, you drive your car - and you can't expect to keep driving it and driving it and driving it and driving it without stopping to put fuel in. And the same for your body. It needs fuel to keep going. I thought that’s such a perfect analogy for our relationship.”

“To any couples who are looking at doing that, I think one of the best things I've learned from business and leading teams is that if everybody's accountable, nobody is accountable.”

“We thought, We're providing education, let's give to education .We know that that is one of the fastest ways we can get people up and above that poverty line. It has such an incredible return

on investment, for the money that goes in and the outcomes that you get when you spend it on education.”

“We want to see a world where nobody is without education - nobody is without the means to better themselves, and better their families, and their communities, and their networks. And when we start educating our citizens, incredible ripple effects happen.”

“One of the gifts of the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals is that it provides an incredible framework for identifying the problems that we need to solve.”

“The [Global] Goals, I really feel, are a great way to rally people around a shared vision and a shared framework... There's something in that framework, in those 17 goals, for everyone to contribute to. We all have a responsibility to get behind these goals.”

“If you can solve those [problems related to unhappy relationships], you can direct your energy out. Having better relationships - it impacts workplaces, it impacts economies, impacts countries, and in turn the world. If we're busy solving problems in our home and our relationship, we can't dedicate energy to those 17 goals.”

“You can move through this course together, set some really big goals, understand each other's communication frameworks, figure out what teamwork looks like for the two of you, figure out the best way for the two of you to resolve conflict, identify what your big values are, which ones you share, and how you can just really design your life intentionally together.”

Links:

The Give Back Model website TheGiveBackModel.com

Follow The Give Back Model on Instagram @thegivebackmodel Sammi Jaeger website SammiJaeger.com

Fuel Collective website FuelCollective.com.au

The Date Forever Podcast FuelCollective.com.au/podcast