0:00

Hello, hello, everyone. And welcome to the

0:02

Intentional Advantage podcast. I'm your host, Tanya Dalton.

0:05

This is episode 297. We had such a great conversation

0:11

in our last episode talking about strengths and weaknesses and I wanted

0:16

to really continue that conversation.

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We touched a lot on communication,

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we touched a lot on relationships,

0:23

and I wanted to go even deeper in this episode today.

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So, I have John on the show, again, as we've been doing.

0:30

I'm really enjoying having him on the show, It's so good to get his perspective.

0:34

Today we're going to be talking about marriage, relationships, not

0:38

just marriage, but all kinds of relationships, but also creating

0:43

really strong communication. John and I've been married for over

0:46

two decades, 24 years this year.

0:49

And truly you'll hear me say this in the episode.

0:53

Communication is the secret sauce of why we are so ridiculously

0:58

happy in our marriage. It really is.

1:00

And so we're going to talk about communication. We're going to talk about the division of

1:03

chores because that is definitely a point

1:06

of contention in a lot of relationships.

1:09

Because in every relationship, we're going to talk about this.

1:12

There is one person who loads

1:14

the dishwasher like a Swedish architect, and there is another

1:17

person in the relationship who loads it like a raccoon on meth.

1:21

You might be surprised to find out which one I am.

1:24

Let's dive into that. We're going to talk about that right now.

1:26

Let's get started with the show. Does your life spark joy?

1:30

I'm not asking if your life is good or if life feels okay.

1:34

Does it spark joy? When was the last time you

1:37

slipped into bed at night and thought, today felt amazing?

1:42

Because if it's been more than two or three days, that's too long.

1:46

I'm Tanya Dalton, a best selling author,

1:48

motivational speaker, seven figure entrepreneur, and oh yeah, wife and mom.

1:52

So I get it. I understand the stress of daily life.

1:57

As a productivity expert, I'm here to

1:59

help you choose the extraordinary life.

2:01

This season, we will be exploring how we can create more joy and

2:05

intention into every single day.

2:07

And it doesn't have to be so hard.

2:10

This is The Intentional Advantage. On our last episode, you and I, John,

2:16

we were talking about strengths and

2:18

weaknesses and we didn't have time

2:20

to get to all the different parts where we talked about communication.

2:24

And it was funny because just like 2 or 3 days ago.

2:29

We were sitting downstairs in the living room and we were having this

2:32

conversation about how I was struggling

2:34

with some of my work because I am,

2:37

I'm 100 percent a self starter. I don't need external

2:40

forces motivating me. I'm very internally motivated and

2:44

I've always thought of myself as being a person who just kind of goes off,

2:48

does their thing and then moves on.

2:51

Except I've been realizing because you've been very busy with some of

2:54

your consulting work that you're doing. John does some fractional CMO

2:57

work for different companies that we have not been meeting and

3:02

strategizing and communicating.

3:05

And I realized I don't work well in a

3:08

silo and that fits so completely with the

3:12

conversation we had on the last podcast.

3:15

And I said to you, I said, you know what?

3:17

We probably should just be recording this because it was such a great

3:21

conversation where we talked about how we work, how different we work.

3:26

And the way that we communicate and the way that we lean

3:29

on each other's strengths. and weaknesses is part of,

3:33

that's part of our secret sauce. Wouldn't you agree? Yeah.

3:35

And I think, understanding what

3:38

about us is different and that's, I

3:40

know we're going to dive into this more, is really what helps us a lot.

3:44

We also understand where we're the same, right?

3:47

Cause we do have some similarities for sure, in terms of some of our

3:51

personality traits and everything else. But. A lot of the core ones are different

3:54

and understanding that makes a big difference in how we work together.

3:58

We get a lot of emails and questions about how do you guys make this work?

4:02

How does your marriage work? We've been together a long time.

4:05

We are madly in love with each other. We have a great time together.

4:09

We have so much fun. How do you do it?

4:11

And I think it is recognizing those differences.

4:14

So I felt like today on the show, I wanted to touch a little bit back on

4:17

those strengths because that ties in with everything, how we communicate,

4:21

and even how we work together. Because, you know, I was reading

4:25

the other day that someone had said, I can't remember who it was.

4:28

They were talking about the fact that in every marriage, there's a

4:30

how person and there's a wow person.

4:33

And the wow person is

4:35

a hundred percent me. They're the person who has these

4:38

big, fast ideas and I'm thinking big.

4:41

And I come to you and I'm like, okay,

4:43

like you'll be sitting, you'll just be sitting there working on something.

4:46

I'll be like, okay, I have this idea. I can see you bracing yourself.

4:49

You're like, all right, I got to buckle up, put my seatbelt on.

4:52

Here she goes. I'm in the big wow person

4:54

because I have all these ideas. Like anything is possible.

4:58

And you. are the how person.

5:01

Like, here I am with this gigantic idea, and your question will be,

5:05

well, how are we going to do that? How is this going to work?

5:08

How are we going to, right? Like, you're the one who keeps me

5:11

tethered to the earth in a lot of ways, which is Very important because

5:15

I'm floating off into space with these

5:17

giant ideas and you have a hold of my ankle and you're like, okay, let's

5:21

bring in a little bit of reality, right? And you're more of the logistical person.

5:26

You're the person who's paying attention to like, I mean, this sounds great, but

5:30

who the hell is going to do these things? And how are we going to do these things?

5:35

Yeah. And I think, you know, looking back on it, I can understand why you

5:39

thought I was just throwing cold water on your ideas and saying, well,

5:42

how are we going to implement that? Or what's the process for that?

5:44

I immediately started thinking of the steps, right?

5:47

How are we going to execute this? And.

5:50

Sometimes if you don't understand the way my brain works, that comes

5:53

across as me poo pooing your idea,

5:56

As opposed to, okay, well, let's talk about how we can make this work.

5:59

and now that we understand that it makes

6:02

those conversations work so much better.

6:04

And really it's a great, it's a great balance, or I guess I should

6:07

say harmony, not balance, right? In our relationship and how we

6:11

work together with those ideas. I totally agree because you need

6:16

the person who's there saying, how are we going to do this?

6:18

And this is actually part of when we were talking about

6:21

strengths in our last episode.

6:23

And when you think about who you want to have at your table and what I mean at

6:27

your table, I mean, in conversations you

6:29

don't want to have all the same people. You want to have different

6:32

people, different perspective, different ideas, lots of diversity.

6:36

Because the way that we all think really

6:38

does create a better end product, whether

6:41

that end product is your kids, right?

6:43

That's the product you're creating your kids or you're in a business,

6:48

situation and you're creating products

6:50

and services or you're managing a team.

6:52

We want to have lots of different ideas. But the thing is, we have to

6:57

respect that other people have other ways of operating and working.

7:01

And that did take us a while, because I would feel like you

7:04

were the splash of cold water. I'd have this, like, fantastic idea,

7:08

which probably wasn't even that fantastic, but I thought it was at the time.

7:12

And you would bring me down to earth and say, Okay, okay.

7:15

How are we going to do this? What about all these other things that we're working on?

7:18

How are we going to make this work? And now, instead of getting frustrated,

7:22

now I see this is the important part of, of the whole process.

7:27

You know, for those of you who

7:29

are subscribed to my newsletter, which is at tanyadalton.

7:32

com slash connect, you know, I shared

7:34

just this past week, my leadership guide.

7:37

And in my leadership guide, it very clearly says, not

7:40

interested in granular details. I like the big picture.

7:44

I like for you to come to me with these problems that already, you

7:47

already have solutions for or ideas of how you want to solve them.

7:51

I don't do granular. And that's part of what's

7:53

great is John is very granular.

7:56

He likes to look at all the little details. I like to say that a good example of

8:00

how we operate and work at home is I

8:03

will have this idea for a gallery wall.

8:05

I'll have this idea for this gallery wall and I'll have it all mapped out.

8:08

Like I want to do a big picture here at eight by 10 and 11 by 14 and I'll

8:13

have this whole vision of what I want. And then I better not get the hammer and

8:17

nails because I won't take the time to

8:20

measure and make it all hang properly.

8:23

I'll just start like putting holes into the wall.

8:25

John is the person who then comes in and he's like, all right, I gotcha.

8:29

I see the vision. Now I'm going to execute it.

8:31

And that's how we work together really well.

8:34

But it did take a lot of

8:36

communication to get here. I think in doing a lot of that work

8:40

and understanding how we think and how

8:42

we work together, we were able to turn

8:45

that frustration into appreciation.

8:47

So now with that example you gave with the gallery wall, I understand

8:51

that you're better with the vision, So if we have that project on the

8:54

front end, you do that work and you come up with what we're doing.

8:57

And then I execute it, I have the

9:00

patience to sit there with a level

9:03

to make sure things are lined up perfectly straight, because those

9:05

kinds of details make my brain happy. And now that you understand

9:09

that you appreciate it, it doesn't frustrate you anymore.

9:11

It's it's now, how we work together

9:14

and it makes things so much better.

9:17

And the, the end product of whatever it is we're working on is much better too.

9:21

Absolutely. I completely agree. And I think that's the thing.

9:24

It's not just that we have these differences.

9:26

It's that we appreciate them. But that is something that has taken a

9:30

lot of communication and understanding

9:32

that we need to talk about these things. And we need to talk about the fact

9:35

that I find it frustrating that you're a splash of cold water.

9:38

You're like, well, I'm not a splash of cold water. Right?

9:40

And so we have this communication back and forth. It reminds me of how, not long

9:45

after you and I got married. It was within our first year of marriage.

9:50

We were, doing something and I went

9:53

out with these other women and one

9:55

of the women was saying, Oh, my husband's coming back from a trip.

9:58

And I said, Oh, well, you should, you should go and meet with him.

10:02

And she goes, no, I'm not interested.

10:05

I've been married 10 years.

10:08

You wait till you're been married 10 years. You wait till you've been married

10:11

10 years and we'll see how excited you are to see your husband.

10:14

And I thought, Oh, that's so sad.

10:18

And I thought, is this just part of being a newlywed that I am excited

10:21

to see him when he comes home or when he's been gone on a trip?

10:25

And I think that interaction really

10:27

got me to think about what I did want

10:30

when we had been married 10 years. What did I want that to look like?

10:33

I didn't want to think, I don't care if my husband comes home

10:36

from a five day business trip. I wanted to be excited.

10:39

And so it is a lot of times making

10:41

these little compromises and talking.

10:45

A lot about what you're interested, what I'm interested in,

10:48

So it's this regular communication and

10:51

that is truly the secret sauce of our

10:53

marriage is the communication, because here we are 24 years later and I'll

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tell you what, that woman was wrong. When we had been married 10 years,

11:00

I was still fired up when you came home from a business trip.

11:03

And now 24 years, I'm still

11:05

fired up when he comes home. When he's gone for two days, I

11:08

can't wait for him to come home. I cannot wait for you to walk in the

11:12

door because I'm excited to see you.

11:14

Because we've, we've kept that connection and I think that's a big part of it.

11:18

Yeah, it definitely is. And you know, the, the

11:20

communication part is key. I feel like a lot of people, keep

11:25

their lives separate and they don't

11:27

talk about the hunting trip or

11:29

the girl's night out and it just creates more distance over time.

11:33

And that's why 10 years down the road,

11:36

you find a lot of people like that woman you were talking about who they just.

11:40

They kind of lost their way. They're on different paths and they didn't

11:43

stay connected and they don't communicate and we made a conscious decision that

11:47

that's not what we were going to do. And there's still plenty of things

11:49

that I do and that you do that we don't do together or that I'm not

11:53

interested in or that you're not interested in, which is totally fine.

11:58

But we, we ask about it. You know, we try to stay connected

12:01

and understand like you have some

12:03

friends that I never even met before.

12:06

I wouldn't recognize him if I bumped into him in the street, but you go

12:09

out to have tea with your friend, Maura, and I ask about it and you

12:13

tell me about the conversation. So I feel like I'm at

12:15

least a part of it somehow. And then you feel like I'm

12:19

interested in what you're doing, even if it doesn't involve me.

12:22

So I think a lot of that really helps

12:25

us stay connected in such a great way.

12:28

I think that really does make a huge

12:30

difference for us and how our marriage

12:33

works I think that It's really easy to

12:36

only have the kids in common to or only talk about things with your kids So making

12:40

sure we were always very conscious when we go out and we'd have date nights One of

12:44

our rules was we couldn't talk about the kids and we couldn't talk about, because

12:49

especially with us working together, that could turn into a work meeting or it

12:53

could turn into a full conversation about, oh, what do we need to do about this?

12:56

Or should we ground this kid or whatever?

12:59

It was like, we had to find other things to talk about.

13:01

And I think that's really been helpful in our marriage.

13:05

I think too, and this is really one of

13:07

the things I want to dive into for this

13:09

next part of the podcast is the division

13:12

of labor, because I think that's an area

13:14

of contention for a lot of marriages and

13:16

a lot of not just marriages, even if it's

13:19

a significant other or even a roommate

13:21

situation where you're, you know, living

13:24

with other people and there's not a happy

13:27

division of the chores and the housework.

13:31

You and I talk about this a lot because I think the way that we divide

13:35

up our chores and the way that we divide up household things is very,

13:39

very different than a lot of people.

13:41

We do not play into a lot of the gender roles at all.

13:45

And for a long time, I was the main breadwinner and you were the one who was

13:48

Running carpool or, you know, doing the

13:51

laundry and doing some of those tasks that are traditionally a woman's job, which

13:56

I hate even saying that, but it's the

13:59

truth that a lot of those jobs are seen

14:03

as women's work And I'm not saying that.

14:06

Men are not fantastic allies to us,

14:08

but there is this pervasive belief.

14:10

I did a lot of research before we dove

14:13

into this podcast episode, looking at why

14:16

is it that there's this struggle a lot

14:19

of times, especially with men and women,

14:22

with the household chores and the jobs

14:24

and why is it, And this is a true fact.

14:27

Why is it that women are still doing the lion's share of the chores at home?

14:32

And it was fascinating. I know you and I have talked a lot about

14:35

it preparing for this episode, but what I

14:38

found interesting is it's traditionally in

14:41

heterosexual marriages and relationships

14:45

that you see this very wide division

14:48

of taking care of the house is woman's

14:50

work and the other things are the

14:52

men's men's work going out and working.

14:54

Even though the woman is working, even though she might

14:57

be even the main breadwinner in a lot of these relationships.

15:00

I have women I know who are making three

15:02

times what their husbands are making, and yet they're still in charge of all the

15:05

child care and laundry and getting dinner

15:08

on the table and all of those things. So it was really interesting to dive into

15:12

this research because you don't see that

15:15

same division between same sex couples.

15:19

So in this research that I was looking up, they were saying heterosexual couples,

15:23

they tend to follow along gender lines. Same sex couples relationships,

15:27

they don't have that division. It seems like a more of a 50 50

15:31

split, but here's what's interesting.

15:34

Once they have children, all

15:37

of a sudden that changes. I thought that was fascinating.

15:40

Like it's all of a sudden whoever is taking care of the children,

15:44

they're then deemed into the

15:47

household slash women's work.

15:49

It's almost like it's not necessarily

15:51

a men's role versus a woman's role.

15:54

It's more the provider versus the caretaker, right?

15:58

And so I think when we read that

16:00

article about the same sex couples,

16:03

And when they have children, I was like, Oh, I mean, it makes sense.

16:08

You fall into those traditional roles.

16:10

And traditionally the man was the provider and the woman was

16:14

the caretaker and somehow we have

16:16

trouble breaking free of that. but I thought that was interesting

16:19

that it happened in the same sex marriages too, once they introduced

16:22

kids into the whole thing. And it kind of makes sense, but at the

16:26

same time, We can do better than that. We can do so much better.

16:31

I mean, in the research that we found, even as recently as 2010,

16:36

women were doing twice the household

16:39

chores than the husbands were. Twice the household chores.

16:43

That's crazy. And these women are going out and doing

16:46

amazing things with their own careers. And yet somehow they're

16:49

expected to do this. And there is this pervasive belief.

16:53

And this is not just in the

16:55

United States or Western cultures. It's pervasive around the world

16:59

that as women start to go into

17:02

certain areas of industry.

17:05

And they're seeing this, for example, in a lot of medical

17:07

fields, in the healthcare industry. When there starts to be more women

17:12

in a certain industry, so say, for example, obstetrics, or like a certain

17:17

genre, we'll say, of medicine, when

17:21

women start becoming the majority, or

17:23

even a larger minority than they, what

17:26

they used to be, the pay decreases

17:30

dramatically as soon as women come on as these experts.

17:34

And that I think is really interesting. And that says a lot about how society

17:38

still looks at women and our roles.

17:42

Our time is not seen as

17:44

important as it is for men. It has much lower value.

17:49

And I don't understand why that is, but I do think

17:52

that can be the heart of a lot of issues with a marriage.

17:57

I found this research that we were diving into so fascinating

18:01

because it does explain why there

18:04

can be this misunderstanding about

18:06

whose work or whose job it is at home to do these different things,

18:09

And one of the things that this study

18:12

found was it's not even about a 50

18:15

50 division of the labor at home.

18:17

That's not what makes couples happy. It's if you feel each individual feels

18:23

like they are sharing and that they like

18:25

the household duties that they're doing. There's always going to be

18:28

duties you don't like to do. I said duties.

18:31

hmm. There's always going to be chores and

18:34

tasks that you don't really love to do, but if there's a division where

18:38

someone else is taking on some of those chores that you don't like as much at

18:41

least, the, the satisfaction in that

18:44

relationship dramatically increases.

18:46

So, I think it's really important that you're making sure that you're

18:49

communicating all of these things.

18:52

So, when I was thinking about this and how, you know, going back through

18:56

the decades that you and I have been together, how we started really dividing

19:00

up and figuring out, I came up with five

19:03

steps that really can help you with the

19:05

division of labor in your relationship.

19:08

Whether it's a marriage or a roommate

19:10

situation or a significant other, someone that you're living with.

19:14

It really does help to do these five things.

19:17

So I want to go through those with you. John, you and I have talked about this.

19:21

This is definitely things that we have done. The first step is setting the priorities.

19:27

Now, that seems like a strange thing, although it doesn't.

19:30

Coming for me, come on. We talk about priorities all the time

19:33

on here. But the truth is, How many

19:36

people are doing chores that you really don't give a shit about?

19:40

I mean, quite frankly, sometimes we're doing things because that's

19:42

what we think we are supposed to do. So for example, making

19:46

the bed in the morning. We make the bed in the morning.

19:48

It makes us very happy when we walk in the room and that feels good.

19:52

If you are a person who does not care if

19:54

the bed is made, why are you doing it?

19:57

If you genuinely don't care,

19:59

whether the bet is made. Don't do it.

20:02

Take some of those things off of your task list.

20:05

So really choosing what do we need to do?

20:08

What's essential? What are the tasks that we absolutely have to do?

20:11

There are always tasks that we absolutely have to do that are essential.

20:14

What are the tasks that are important? And this is a great conversation

20:18

to have with the person you're living with or with your team.

20:20

what are the tasks that are really important? What are the ones that we're

20:23

doing that we can just stop? What are the things that we don't

20:25

really care about that we're doing just

20:28

because we're supposed to be doing? So it is first really

20:30

setting those priorities. We need to do these things.

20:33

These things are important. These things are essential.

20:35

These things, oh, let's stop doing those.

20:38

Let's just quit. And that's okay.

20:41

Yeah, and I think it's important to understand, too, the differences in your

20:44

priorities versus my priorities, right?

20:46

And that's the same in any relationship. Like there's things that in the house

20:50

are important for you that aren't important for me and vice versa, but

20:55

you need to have that communication. Like I know for you, you like to walk

20:59

in the door and not see a bunch of crap, either on the stairs from the

21:02

garage or in the laundry room, which is the first room that you walk into.

21:07

Not that important to me, but because I

21:09

know it's important to you, I will stop

21:11

and make sure that I'm going to pick those towels up off the floor in the laundry

21:14

room, because that's going to drive Tanya crazy, even though it doesn't bother me.

21:18

So it's some of those little tiny things.

21:20

Understanding each other's priorities makes a big difference.

21:23

Absolutely. For me, the garage, I like

21:26

the garage to be very neat. That to me is my welcome home.

21:28

This is the first thing I see when I'm coming back home.

21:32

That's my greeting is the garage. So that's a sticking point for me,

21:36

which I love that you pointed that out because that gets me to the second step.

21:39

So the first step was setting the priorities. And then the second step

21:42

is setting the assignments. Listen, if this is important

21:45

to you, then maybe you should be the one in charge of it.

21:48

So for example, the garage, as I just mentioned, That's important to me.

21:51

I feel like I pull the car in. I don't want to see a bunch

21:54

of stuff in the garage. I don't want to see a bunch of junk there.

21:57

I don't want to see the laundry room, which is the room we essentially

22:00

see right when we walk in the door. I don't want to see that looking messy.

22:04

So when we painted the house, I painted the garage.

22:08

The garage is painted a color. It makes me happy.

22:11

The garage is neat. That's my domain that I

22:13

make sure is nice and neat. That's my assignment.

22:16

And so, you know, Last week on Not Rocket

22:20

Science, that's my sub stack, my resource

22:23

hub of information, I had a four minute

22:25

video where I walk through a process

22:27

you can do with your employees to make sure that they're doing things that they

22:31

really like and get them ignited and fired up and excited about their jobs.

22:35

You can do that same process, What I think is important is

22:38

it's not you assigning people.

22:41

It's having a meeting as a team, whether it's you and your

22:45

significant other or you, your significant other and your children.

22:49

Or whoever it is on that team at home and having a conversation

22:53

about what is it you like to do? What is it you want to do more of?

22:57

And as I said in that video that I posted, there's always going

22:59

to be tasks you don't like. We want to make sure that someone is

23:02

not overloaded with, they're always

23:04

doing the tasks that nobody likes. Like nobody likes picking up the dog poop.

23:08

I mean, I'll be honest, I'm not sure who

23:10

in the world enjoy speaking of dog poop, but so we make sure that that's rotated.

23:15

Right? And we like speaking of the dog poop.

23:19

So, if you haven't seen that video, definitely go check

23:22

that out on my Substack. I'll put a link in the show notes.

23:25

But check that out because here's the thing that happens. A lot of times you feel like I'm doing

23:28

all this work and you're doing nothing, but we don't say anything about it.

23:32

We don't say, Hey, I'm noticing

23:35

that I'm doing all these things. I don't like them.

23:37

What can you help me with? It's like, we're afraid to have that.

23:41

difficult conversation with someone to say, I'm not happy

23:44

with how things are running. I like to say that the first five

23:47

minutes of those conversations are the most difficult.

23:50

Once you get past the first five minutes, so much easier, right?

23:54

But you have the conversation and talk about who's going to do what.

23:58

Take that list that you just talked about when you set your priorities and

24:01

say, okay, who's in charge of this? Who's in charge of that?

24:03

Who wants to do this? Because there's going to

24:05

be some tasks people love. I love cleaning windows.

24:10

It's kind of a random task, but it makes me feel so happy.

24:13

I feel like when I clean the windows, the house looks clean.

24:17

So I'm very happy to take on that chore.

24:19

So there's certain things that might surprise you that people like.

24:22

A lot of people like mowing the grass. I also enjoy mowing the grass.

24:26

I know you do as well. It's very satisfying to me seeing those

24:29

lines of grass getting mowed down.

24:31

So talk about what do you like? What do you not like?

24:33

And start figuring out who's in charge of what.

24:36

Those conversations about giving assignments. It's not giving people orders, right?

24:40

You're having a conversation so you can come to an agreement.

24:43

it's a team thing. It's not a drill sergeant kind of

24:47

you're going to do this we can make this a conversation and make it work

24:50

a lot better And for me vacuuming is

24:53

kind of like washing the windows like I enjoy that It makes me feel good

24:57

to walk around the house barefoot and

25:00

not step on dog food or, flour that we

25:02

dropped on the floor in the kitchen. I really like the clean floor.

25:06

So I do that because it's important to me, but you can't, you don't know that

25:10

if you don't have the conversations Yeah, absolutely.

25:12

And I like that you like to vacuum.

25:14

That makes me very happy. Let's talk about step three.

25:18

So we've talked about the first two steps. The third step is setting expectations.

25:23

And I'll be honest, this is probably the step that most people miss.

25:27

They say, I want the floor to be cleaned. I want your room to be clean.

25:31

Right? And then there's no parameters.

25:34

There's no idea of what

25:36

success looks like. And the truth is

25:38

How can we achieve success if we

25:40

don't know what success looks like?

25:43

Making sure from the front end, you are setting the expectation

25:46

of this is what I define. This is what I define as organized.

25:51

that's really important. Back, you know, years ago, with the

25:55

kids, instead of saying, clean your room, and then we'd come upstairs and

25:58

we'd be like, your room's not clean. And they'd say, yeah, it is.

26:02

I came up with a room inspection where it was like, here's a little

26:04

checklist of what my expectations are.

26:07

You're not gonna have things shoved underneath your dresser, right?

26:10

The closet floor is cleaned. It was just a short little

26:12

checklist so they understood, oh,

26:16

this is what mom's looking for. Because the word clean means a lot of

26:19

things to a lot of people, and if you have children, you know their definition

26:23

of clean is not the same as yours. Right.

26:26

So I think that's really important

26:28

is making sure that you're setting those expectations.

26:31

And this is exactly like delegation, quite frankly.

26:34

And that's 1 of the big mistakes, a lot of people make in delegation

26:37

is they delegate some something. They delegate a task to someone and they

26:42

don't take the time to define success. This is what the expectations are.

26:46

And then we're disappointed and we're irritated and we end up taking it

26:50

back because they haven't done it the way that we think it should be done.

26:54

But if you don't set those expectations on the front end, they don't know what to do.

26:57

So essentially what we're doing in step three is delegating.

27:01

So we talk a lot about delegation. Delegation happens at home and actually

27:07

now that I think about it, I think that the sub stack, the email I'm going to send

27:11

out today is going to be about delegation.

27:13

I have a whole delegation blueprint that you can walk through that shows

27:17

you how you set the expectations, what that meeting looks like.

27:21

So I will send that out today

27:23

and I'll put a link to that. But if you'll go to Tanya

27:25

Dalton dot com slash connect. You'll make sure that you get

27:28

that email and you'll make sure that you get that delegation.

27:31

Even if you don't get it this week, I'll, I'll send the link

27:33

as well in the following week. So make sure you're signed

27:36

up for my sub stack. I'm going to go ahead and send you that

27:38

delegation blueprint just because I

27:40

think it really does change the game.

27:43

We all have different expectations. You know, I've seen, this meme out

27:47

there that says in every marriage,

27:50

there's a person who loads the dishwasher like a Swedish architect.

27:54

And there's a person who loads the dishwasher like a raccoon on meth.

27:59

And I think that's true. I think that's true.

28:01

And you know what? I know who that person is in my marriage.

28:05

That person in my marriage who loads the

28:07

dishwasher like a raccoon on meth is me.

28:11

I, I don't have the patience. for loading the dishwasher in

28:14

the way that John wants it. So now we know I take the dishes after

28:18

they're clean, if I'm cleaning up the dishes, I stack them right where

28:20

the dishwasher is, and he loads them. Or he's trained the kids how to load them.

28:24

Quite frankly, I have purposely not

28:26

trained myself how to load it because I

28:29

can, I can excuse myself from that task.

28:32

But. I am the raccoon on meth

28:34

loading the dishwasher. John is the Swedish architect and

28:37

other and other areas of our world. The junk drawer.

28:40

I'm the Swedish architect. You are the raccoon on meth.

28:44

But that that's why too, when we're having

28:47

that conversation about the assignments, it's really important to understand

28:51

who is going to be better at this job. And then.

28:54

This third step, which is setting the expectations, right?

28:57

Because what happens is John

28:59

has a very specific way. He wants the dishwasher loaded.

29:02

All right, whatever. I don't care. As long as the dishes get clean.

29:05

But what happens is if you have something very specific that you

29:08

want to do, then you end up, you know, I'm just unloading the whole

29:11

dishwasher and I'm reloading it myself. So what happens is eventually

29:14

that person's like, all right, I'm not going to do it. Right?

29:17

And then we get frustrated because we're like, they never do this job.

29:20

Well, if you have a very specific way of doing it, you have to set

29:23

that expectation and let them know. So John has told me how he

29:26

likes the dishwasher to be loaded and we have an agreement.

29:29

I'll, I will clean the dishes, I'll stack them right above it

29:32

and he loads it and that works. That might not work for

29:35

you, but that works for us. Those are the expectations.

29:38

it's all about the conversation, And if

29:41

you're thinking about this from a work standpoint, it's, it's training, right?

29:45

so for example, if you want your

29:47

son to mow the yard, And you say, you need to mow the yard.

29:50

Well, you don't know what that means to him, right? But if, if that means to you that you

29:54

mow the yard, you edge with the weed

29:56

eater, and then you use the blower to clean off the patio, the driveway and the

30:00

back deck, well, you need to tell them

30:02

that's what you mean by mow the yard. And if you don't, you can't get

30:06

frustrated if they do it wrong because you never taught them how to do it

30:09

to what your expectation levels are.

30:12

So if they're not doing it the way you

30:14

want that's your fault because you haven't

30:16

told them what those expectations are.

30:19

So don't get frustrated with them if they're not meeting your

30:21

expectations, if you never told

30:23

them what your expectations were. that's a huge part of it is

30:27

setting those expectations. It's so important to understand

30:31

the assignment and the expectation. We do that at work.

30:34

We do that at home. I like to say that your home is a business.

30:38

It's a nonprofit. The product you're creating are

30:41

well adjusted children or morals

30:43

and values for you and your family.

30:46

All of that is important, whether you have kids or not.

30:48

Your home is run a lot, a lot of times in very similar ways to

30:52

what you're doing at the office. This is just delegation.

30:56

and again, I will talk about delegation

30:58

on the sub stack on not rocket science, because I think it is so important

31:01

that we understand how to do this. All right, let's move to step

31:05

number four, because step number four is meet regularly.

31:09

So it is having this communication, you

31:11

know, as I mentioned earlier with the dog

31:14

poop example, I like that I said dog poop

31:16

now multiple times on the podcast, but

31:20

nobody wants that job on a regular basis.

31:22

Nobody wants that job.

31:24

So we make sure that we meet regularly

31:27

so that we can rotate some of those Not

31:30

so fun jobs, those dirty jobs or those

31:32

ones that nobody really wants to do. So we do a family meeting.

31:37

We always call it a team planning and I actually have a YouTube video.

31:40

So i'll i'll include that as well when i'm

31:44

sending out emails and all those things. We have a video where we walk through

31:47

how we do our team planning on Sundays and that's part of that meeting.

31:51

Hey, what's going on? All right, Jack, you've been in

31:54

charge of, you know, this chore that

31:56

nobody wants to do for, for 3 weeks.

31:58

All right, it's K's turn to take the chore for the next 3 weeks or for the next

32:01

month or however you want to rotate it. That allows everyone to feel like,

32:05

okay, at least I'm only doing it for a short amount of time.

32:08

Right? And that's very similar actually

32:10

to how you and I split up feeding

32:13

babies when we had babies. When we had infants, right, we would do

32:17

at night, we would bottle feed at night,

32:20

we'd go three days on, three days off.

32:22

So I would be on for three days. And then I would, and then John would

32:26

be on for three days and then I would be on for three days and then John would

32:29

be on for three days and that really

32:31

worked because you never got to a point

32:34

where you were so exhausted and angry

32:37

and cranky and all of those things where you're snapping at each other because that

32:41

first night that you're off, it's kind of like how oil rig workers do it, where

32:44

they do these six weeks on and then six

32:46

weeks off you go, you get in that mode

32:49

and you're like, all right, I'm going to get up for the next three nights.

32:51

That's doable, right? Totally doable to get up

32:53

for the next three nights. Well, after you've done your three nights,

32:56

your three day tour or three night tour,

33:00

those first three days where you're off, you're like the first day you're

33:03

not sleeping great, but you're okay. Second night, get a

33:06

little bit better sleep. Third night you sleep solid.

33:09

And then you're back up and running for being back on for baby feeding.

33:12

And that worked well for us. So it's really important.

33:15

You want to have this, this almost like a pattern or a rhythm where

33:18

it's like, okay, I can do this. This is short term.

33:21

It's not forever. Some chores are really either dirty

33:25

or they're just chores nobody likes

33:27

or they're chores that are really big. So making sure that you're rotating that.

33:32

The other thing that's great about meeting regularly is that it

33:35

allows us to support each other. That's one of the things in our team

33:38

meetings that we have on Sundays is, hey, what's everybody have going on?

33:42

So let's say that Kay has a lot

33:44

going on for, she has her ACT. Okay.

33:47

That she's preparing for this week. She's taking your ACT this week.

33:50

Okay, Kay's got her ACT. What do you need us to

33:53

take off your plate? Because we're here to support you.

33:55

So we're doing more of her chores while she's preparing for the ACT.

33:58

And then the following week, maybe Jack has something and we're all kind

34:01

of shoring up and working together so that no one's feeling overwhelmed.

34:05

And there are times where I'm the one who has too much on my plate going on.

34:09

Like, as I was preparing for launching

34:11

the sub stack, it was like, okay, I can't do all the other things.

34:14

So the kids came in and did more of the chores and you came in and

34:18

took care of some of my chores. We work together and that

34:21

creates that team mentality. I think that's why.

34:24

We do have such a close knit family is we have this regular communication,

34:27

this regular opportunity to, to

34:29

connect and talk about what's going on. and I think also it gives you the

34:32

opportunity when you have those meetings to make adjustments, right?

34:37

like you mentioned, Tanya, with you're having a heavy week.

34:40

We can pick up some of the slack. That's part of the adjustment.

34:43

Sometimes it's like, maybe the expectations we set weren't realistic.

34:46

To begin with, and we need to change them, you know, with the yard,

34:50

maybe we can't edge it anymore because the weed eaters broken.

34:53

So we need to adjust those, but it allows you with those regular

34:56

conversations to make sure that we can make those adjustments.

35:00

Everybody's concerns or whatever being heard.

35:03

and everyone feels supported and like they're a part of the team.

35:06

So it's, it's extremely important to

35:08

make sure that you're meeting regularly. Well, essentially what you just did

35:12

was said step number five, which is reassess, make adjustments,

35:17

which do they happen together. So it is this idea of,

35:21

hey, what's working. I like what you said there.

35:24

Like maybe the weed eater's not working. What can we let go of?

35:26

What do we have to get fixed? Are these things really important?

35:28

Sometimes we take on a task and then we go, we're going with it.

35:32

And then also we're like, why are we doing this again? This really isn't that important to me.

35:36

So having the opportunity to reassess,

35:39

and it also gives you a chance to check in with each other because what we don't

35:42

want is anyone keeping a scorecard. Hey, I'm doing all these things

35:45

and you're doing nothing. Or I feel like I'm doing all this

35:48

work and you're just sitting there. But we can let go of that.

35:52

Feeling like we need to blame letting

35:55

go of the blame game and letting go of the scorecard when we're

35:58

stopping and regularly reassessing. I actually have that on the calendar

36:01

where it's like, let's reassess our chores like twice a year.

36:04

We just do a quick check in. How are we feeling about this?

36:07

What do we need to do? You and I are gearing up

36:09

to do our summer task list.

36:11

We were just talking about that this morning. Like, what do we want to accomplish

36:14

the summer while the weather is nice? What are the outdoor

36:16

things we want to tackle? And what are the projects

36:18

we're going to enjoy? So those are the five steps.

36:22

So just to review them with you again, it's first of all

36:24

Setting Your Priorities what are the things that are important?

36:26

What do you need to let go of? What's essential? Setting the assignment.

36:30

Who wants these different jobs? What do you like?

36:32

What do you not like? Use that activity that I shared, you know,

36:36

on the sub stack, on Not Rocket Science.

36:39

Use that activity to write out the chores and pop them in

36:41

those four different categories. Then we have our third step, setting

36:45

expectations, making sure everyone knows what success looks like.

36:48

Fourth step, meeting regularly. And fifth step, reassess and

36:52

make adjustments as needed. When we do that, do you see how

36:56

the communication is just built in? It's baked into the entire process because

37:00

you're continually talking about it.

37:02

And talking about it, that's

37:04

the first step of anything. Building bridges happens

37:09

when we're talking and we're going a little bit deeper.

37:11

Instead of being angry, it's taking

37:14

a step back, taking a deep breath and saying, okay, what do we want to do?

37:18

And it is also, let's be honest, letting

37:20

go of other people's expectations. The schools, teachers, a lot

37:24

of people expect mom to be in charge of everything, right?

37:26

A lot of times, even though John would drop off the kids at school, they would

37:31

still email me asking me questions.

37:34

And I would, and I would very gently say, well, John can talk to you about that when

37:37

he's picking up this afternoon, right? That John's in charge of this.

37:41

There's that whole mentality. I'm really happy because I see it changing

37:45

on TV, but of the dumb dad who doesn't do

37:48

anything that drives me crazy because when

37:52

we treat dads that way, of course they're

37:55

just like playing into the persona. Like I guess I'm not

37:57

supposed to do these things. So if we really want to change

38:01

the way that we https: otter.

38:06

ai if I would encourage anything, I would

38:13

say Don't look at TV and social media

38:16

and those kinds of things to figure out, you know What should our roles in

38:20

our relationship be just talk to each

38:23

other figure out what works for you?

38:26

That's what's most important and you know

38:28

if you see resentment coming in, you

38:31

know to yourself or if your partners has

38:34

a scorecard like when we were talking about step number four, that's a huge

38:37

red flag If someone is keeping score or

38:39

somebody's harboring some resentment,

38:42

have more conversations it's never too late to try to fix, whatever is happening.

38:46

It really is shifting a lot of those perceptions and choosing

38:50

to do the things that feel good.

38:52

And that's why that first step is really setting your priorities

38:55

and having the conversations. It is sometimes hard.

38:58

Especially if you are feeling some resentment to take a deep breath set

39:02

aside your anger and then go and

39:04

say, okay, we're going to stop. And we're going to take

39:06

a look at all of this. We're going to lay it all out.

39:08

So, I really want to encourage you, if you are feeling frustrated or irritated.

39:13

This is a great place to start. So I want to encourage you to make

39:16

sure that you look at that delegation blueprint that I'll be sharing.

39:19

You can go to tanyadalton. com slash connect to check out my

39:22

not rocket science resource hub is

39:24

filled with lots of extras from the

39:27

podcast to help you dive even deeper. And this week we'll have that

39:30

delegation blueprint that'll help you not just at work, but also at home.

39:34

And to be honest with you, one of the things you could do right now is you

39:37

could send this podcast episode to

39:40

that person who you're maybe feeling

39:42

a little bit of frustration with. Or if you know someone who is struggling

39:46

with this, take a screenshot of the

39:48

podcast, send them a text message and say,

39:50

Hey, you got to listen to this episode. All right.

39:53

As we wrap up today's show. What I want you to remember

39:55

is relationships really are the key to happiness.

39:58

And if you're having frustration in

40:00

your relationship, because there's not a lot of communication, or you're

40:04

feeling a lot of resentment, because

40:06

maybe the job sharing doesn't feel like it's even and equal, I want to encourage

40:10

you to start having the conversations.

40:13

Yes, the first five minutes are the most difficult part, but I can

40:16

promise you it's absolutely worth it. And truly, that's how you get

40:21

the Intentional Advantage. Ready to take action on what we

40:25

talked about on today's episode? The easiest way to get started is

40:29

my 5 Minute Miracle Mini Course.

40:31

It's normally 97, but you get it for

40:34

free when you join my free sub stack.

40:37

It'll boost your productivity and it will double your happiness.

40:41

Plus, you'll get access to all kinds of extras from the podcast.

40:45

Just go to tanyadalton. com slash connect.

40:49

And don't forget to follow The Intentional Advantage on your podcast

40:52

player so you never miss an episode.