7. RORY & AJ VADEN: Peace Is the New Profit

Episode Transcript

Note: Transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. Please refer to the episode audio or video for exact quotes.

AJ: I got fired. And the moment that I started just saying that I would, I have been shocked and amazed at how many people have come up to me and said, thank you so much for just being honest.

I am Michael Hyatt. 

Megan: And I’m Megan Hyatt Miller. 

Michael: And this is The Double Win, A show about winning at work and succeeding at life. 

Megan: And you know, here at our company Full Focus, we’ve identified nine life domains, which are body, mind, spirit, love, family, community.

Money, work and hobbies that you can cultivate to help you be the person you wanna be and live the life that you wanna live. So today’s guests cover a lot of ground, but I think some of the most relevant are in these domains of love and work. And man was a great conversation. 

Michael: Well, we wanna introduce you to Rory and AJ Vaden.

They have been friends of mine for about. Maybe 12 years, 10 years, something like that. Mm-Hmm. But, uh, we first met on a cruise of all things. We were both speakers at, uh, a Dan Miller event, and we met there. We became fast friends, we had common values. Rory’s been a consultant to our company. He’s amazing in all that.

He is done. Yeah. And AJ. That’s the secret weapon in this dual. 

Megan: That’s right. She’s the CEO of their business Brand Builders group. Um, and they’re actually co-founders of this group together, and they talk all about this in the show, like how they ended up there. It’s, it’s an amazing story, along with their company, Rory and AJ have been featured in Inc. Magazine Success Magazine. Fast Company entrepreneur. 

Michael: And without further ado, here’s our interview with Rory and aj. 

Rory. aj, welcome to the show.

AJ: Hey, glad to be here.

Woo. So glad y’all are here.

Michael: I’m so excited about this. It’s so fun.

AJ: I know we never get to do in person. This isn’t about, I know,

Michael:  I know. We rarely get to do it either. And it’s a lot of fun to do it in person because you get to pick up on things that you don’t see over zoom.  

Megan: Like it’s redhead day. 

Michael: Yeah. Or like I’m constantly hitting 

Megan: Rory being like, stop talking, stop talking.

Michael: Apparently Rory, and I missed the memo on that. 

Megan: Yeah. I feel like you guys could have tried a little harder. Not too late. Okay. 

Michael: Fair enough. 

Well, guys, just, uh, give us a little bit of background, you know, sort of beyond the professional bio, which we already shared with the audience, but just a little bit about how you came to where you’re at today, both personally and in your business world.

Rory: So we started as business partners before we fell in love. 

Megan: Wait, wait, wait. Seriously 

Rory: serious. So we, we, was 

Megan: that a strategy? Mm. 

Both: Well, quite the 

Megan: opposite. 

Both: It worked out as a strategy for me, uh, to land a woman I probably never would’ve gotten otherwise. He always 

AJ: says to land, but I pretty much hunted him down.

He tried to, we, we were working together for a year. Seeing other people and on a Valentine’s Day. So 

Rory: she grew up, so she grew up with somebody that I met in college and they were, they were close friends. And then him and I met in college and we were like, Hey, we’re gonna start a company. And he’s like, well, if we’re gonna start a company, we have to have my best friend aj.

She’s the smartest woman I know, 

AJ: which makes no sense. Sense. It was such a God thing, made absolutely no sense how I got involved at all. That’s how we, but long story short. We were barely friends. Like we probably had five interchanges outside of work meetings in the first year. We knew each other and he randomly shows up at this Valentine’s Charity Day event, and I was on a date with someone else.

But you had

Rory: just broke up with your long time boyfriend? Long term, and I had just broke up with my long time girlfriend

AJ: and we. See each other for the first time. Single. And I tell people all the time, it was literally love at second sight. It was, it was like the clouds parted and the angels sang. And I knew like right then and there, I was like, this is the man for me.

Really? Wow. I sure did. Oh my gosh. And I literally, I was on a date and I told him, this will be our last date. Goodbye. My gosh. Uh, we’ll not be seeing each other again. And he had like, brought me roses. It was Valentine’s Day. And I literally told him that night. Well, this is, we’re we’re done. 

Both: She dumped him.

This is our last on the date, in the middle of the date. Oh. And we danced 

Michael: the whole the whole time. Is that, is that typical for your decision making? You’re like very def

AJ: Yes. Yes. Decisive? Yep. Extremely decisive. But then there is a part of the story that Rory loves to leave out and never tell anyone because three months later he tried to break up with me.

Keyword tried and I said, no. 

Rory: She denied my application for removal. 

AJ: No. Oh my God. He was like trying to be illogical like we have this new business. It doesn’t make sense for two of the founders to be dating like it. It 

Rory: was dangerous to me. It was to me. To me it was, I get that irresponsible potentially to go like, Hey, we’re building a company.

We’ve got other partners. We’ve got people whose livelihood is now in our hands, like this is not, 

AJ: and I said, well then I’ll quit. I’ll leave, but this, this is happening. The only solution, let’s get married. I love it. You go. He was like, I’m sorry, what? And I said, you need to go think about this. Work this out.

I’ll be waiting, but this is not ending. As I knew 

Megan: that. Awesome. 

Michael: Gail actually broke up with me twice during our engagement. It was three times? No, twice. 

Megan: Okay. 

Michael: Just during the engagement. During the engagement. But this is when I knew I had a career in sales. I sold her back into being engaged with me. Uh, and I had to do it twice.

I was very patient. I didn’t get rattled about it. I was just like, you know, it’s okay. Take all the time you need. I’m not going anywhere. And it worked out. We’ve been married 46 years, so. Wow.

AJ: Well, still in love when you know, you know, and I was like, I know, I know. So you’re gonna need to work that out, Rory.

Michael: Okay. So tell us about the business. What did, what kind of business were you in? 

Rory: So we started a sales training business. So we’re in our twenties, right. And, uh, I had been going door to door. In my summers, 14 hours a day, six days a week. And so the only thing I knew was how to sell, but I wanted to be a speaker and I wanted to be an author.

Mm-Hmm. Like my dream was like, how do you get to be the guy on the stage in the arena, like full of all the people? 

And um, so we were like, we’re gonna build the greatest sales training company the world’s ever seen. And so we had this model that we took a Yellow Pages phone book. And we literally shredded it into forest.

There were like four people in the very, this is 2006. 2006. I mean, some 

Megan: people don’t even know what you’re talking about right now. Yeah. There was a book. 

Rory: It was like Google in a book is like what it was for those of you, it’s a great way you explain that I’m gonna, that uh, and, and. And we literally took PI four piles and we said, you call these people.

You call these people. Wow. I was 

AJ: the least experienced, had never sold anything in my life, so they gave me W, X, Y, and Z. Amazing. I had no idea. It was none the wiser, but it turned out in my favors. I picked up some really big accounts like Wells Fargo and Yellow Book, which I imagine doesn’t exist anymore.

Rory: But we, so we would, we would call on these companies, offer to come into their office to do a free one hour sales training. And then the goal was, if we blow everyone’s mind and the, the boss’s mind with how much value we can teach in an hour, give us an opportunity to sell all your people a ticket to come to our one day event.

So we were selling sales training to experienced salespeople as 20 something year old. Sales professionals convincing them to buy a ticket to come learn from us for another full day. Wow. 

Michael: Wow. And then, and then there an upsell beyond that sort of the notes that they came to? No. Oh, there wasn’t, 

Both: no, 

Michael: we hadn’t thought that far.

We 

Both: were not that far ahead. It was all about. Selling one step at a time here, one step at a time. We were doing it 

Rory: the hardest way possible. 

We, we lived, we moved to a new city every four months for like four and a half years. Yeah. We lived in 

AJ: 14 cities in four and a half years. Wow. 

Rory: Because we, we, the strategy was all the events.

It was like we wanted to be speakers, so she didn’t, she had no idea that speaking was even part of the job. When we sold her on signing up for it, 

AJ: I just said yes, 

Rory: and so we would, but we sold like 700 tickets in the first three months and generated a couple hundred thousand dollars in revenue. And it was like a week before the event that we were all sitting around going, what do you think we should teach at the event next week?

Oh my gosh. Of 

AJ: course. Who’s speaking? Who’s doing what? We, we still 

Michael: do that. 

Rory: Yeah. I mean it’s, you know, all comes 

AJ: together. It always works out. It’s not 

Rory: contrived that way. So, so then, so then we were just like, well, I guess we’ll pack up and go to the next city. And then we like the circus. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. And it was like the circus.

And we did that, but we had a, and we grew that company to like 2 million in revenue within like the first year and a half or so. Wow. But we couldn’t scale it because we couldn’t, nobody wanted to live on the road full time. It was a revolving, making cold calls. 

So that’s how we started. So, but we eventually figured out, people said, oh, you know, the events are amazing. 

What else do you have? And we figured out, oh, coaching. And so we started selling coaching. Ah. And things started to change.

And then we figured out it was actually. Much faster and cheaper to sell coaching without the event. Mm-Hmm. Entirely. Mm-Hmm. We could just do the workshop and then sell coaching. And so that’s what we did. And um, and then we started scale and so we built an eight figure business. Uh, in the matter of like a couple years.

And so AJ built a consulting division that worked with like big companies. Um, 

AJ: we launched a speakers bureau. 

Rory: We, we built a speakers bureau. She, she really built that. And then, uh, and then coaching was kind of like the main revenue stream and then speaking. 

And so like, um, we were out speaking and then we exited that business in 2018.

Uh, in 

AJ: all fairness. 

I got super fired, right? So Roy’s kind, super fired. He says, we exited. He exited. I got really fired. 

Both: Wow. 

Michael: I, I love this story. I don’t know how much of it you can tell, but. 

AJ: I don’t mind. 

Michael: Well, AJ got, AJ 

Rory: got canned. Um, 

AJ: but you know, it’s, in all fairness, it’s like, you know how sometimes, like in your heart it’s like you know that you shouldn’t be doing something Mm-Hmm.

But you just, you just keep pressing along. Mm-Hmm. Because it’s what you’ve been doing. Mm-Hmm. Right. And I knew years before I got fired that this. This is not where I was supposed to be. Wow. And I just didn’t have quite enough courage to leave. I was really comfortable making a lot of money, being flown around the world, speaking at big events, and working in Fortune 100 boardrooms.

And I felt a little too cool and also felt really comfortable. I also felt a lot of responsibility at that point. We had a team of over 200 people. Mm-Hmm. And there was a lot of pressure of going like, Mm-Hmm. What would it look like if I left, or really, like who would I be if I left or what would I do if I left?

And so I didn’t, even though I knew I should have. And then things started to change culturally within, you know, the leadership. And some were going left, some were going right, and it was 

Rory: not a double win. I mean, it was, it was a single win. It was, work is life. Wow. Work is all that matters. 80 hours a week.

Who’s the top producer? What’s the award? What have you done lately? Like it was just, I mean, it was a, it was a sales culture. Right? So it was a very intense, 

AJ: yeah. But at the end of the day, 

Rory: all we did was work. 

AJ: But at the end of the day, it was celebrated. That work is first. Yeah. Yes. The culture. Oh, at, in those cultures, the culture was, work is first.

And I think that’s a part of why I never left is my identity. Yeah. Was tied up in this job, this title, this money. And there was a lot of fear around, well, who would I be if I wasn’t doing this? 

Megan: So did you guys have your children yet? 

AJ: No. Okay. We had, um, mayor, that part, that’s also part of 

Michael: what was a part of the catalyst.

That was the catalyst. 

Megan: Okay. 

talk about that. Because I think for a lot of people who are pursuing the double win, there is that catalytic moment. When you know there’s kinda like before and then something happens and then there’s after and that, that, that really galvanizes the commitment to winning at work and succeeding at life.

AJ: Well, in all honesty, it wasn’t until I had Jasper that I realized something was really off. 

Megan: Mm. 

AJ: Because I only took a three week maternity leave. 

Megan: Oh my goodness. So there was 

AJ: so much pressure to be back at work and performing. There was so much fear tied around. Well, if I’m gone for any amount of time, like.

What will happen? 

Megan: Mm-Hmm. 

AJ: And so I only took three weeks and three weeks later I was on the road again, pumping in airports and she was 

Rory: pumping, I remember it was like three, three weeks. She was, she had a gig in Knoxville. She was driving herself in the middle of the storm pumping while she was driving, making sales calls, and she got lost.

And it was like 

AJ: I got off the wrong exit and went back to Knoxville instead of coming to Nashville. It was, and it was like 10:00 PM at night and I was like, had one of those like gas station moments where I’m like, what am I doing? Wow. It was literally on that drive home that I’m like, something has to change.

Like this is, this isn’t what it’s supposed to be like. Like why am I leaving my three year, three week old child? To go do this and that. That was the beginning of, okay, this something is wrong here. Hmm. The whole idea that this is what I should be doing. I was being congratulated for being back at work.

Like, something is wrong here. Mm-hmm. For me. 

Rory: Yeah. 

AJ: Right. If something is wrong here for me. 

Rory: Yeah. And I think it’s the, the classic, you know, we were really young, we worked really hard, we had a lot of success. People were making a lot of money. When young people get a lot of money in their hands, they. Do different things.

And it’s literally when people say it’s philosophical differences, that really is what it was. Hmm. And when we had Jasper, it was like our values, you know, started to change and we started to realize like, oh, we actually have a different vision. I think maybe for how our life. Should 

Michael: go. Was this changing for you, Rory, at the same time that AG AJ was coming to this role?

No, 

Rory: I would’ve had the logo of our, of the former tattooed on my butt the day before it all went down. I mean, I was, I was in for life. I was all in and I was part of the cul, I was the culture. I mean, I was part of the culture. This is, you know, we, um, you know, we work and we, We make sacrifices and we’re disciplined and we do things that a lot of that was super healthy and super wonderful and beautiful and changed my life.

There was wonderful experiences that came from it. We learned so much and we, you know, a lot of my personal character was just developed from, from that. And then, um. So anyways, no, I was all in. 

AJ: It was really hard to say. I got fired. And the moment that I started just saying that I would, I have been shocked and amazed at how many people have come up to me and said, thank you so much for just being honest.

Megan: Mm.

AJ: Same thing happened to me and I’ve had too much shame around it to own it. Wow. And one of the things that dawned on me is that didn’t happen to me. It happened for me. And for me anyways, I know not everyone’s experience is this, but you know, I was sitting in this room being told like, today is your last day.

Your services are no longer needed here. And I’m a somewhat bold individual. Have opinions at times, share them shocking often. And I just, I heard this voice in my head and it kept saying, keep your mouth shut. Let this happen. Keep your mouth shut. Let this happen. And I knew that wasn’t me. Right. I would never say that.

Wow. And I just knew it was God, that God was saying, keep your mouth shut and let this happen. Hmm. And so I did, and it happened and I was walking out both terrified, humiliated, and completely free 

Megan: and light. 

AJ: Wow. Wow. Like I had an immediate, an immediate unburden. Mm-Hmm. Now, lots of burden came soon after, but it was an immediate, like, I, I didn’t have to do that hard thing.

Thank you, God. Wow. Wow. ’cause I don’t know if I would’ve ever had the ability to quit uhhuh, but God was like, clearly you can’t. So I’m gonna step in and do it for you, but we’re gonna do it on my terms. And that’s what I needed. And so that’s like anyone who is struggling with that, I would just say it’s like, it’s rather you’re gonna do it because you know you should, or eventually it’s gonna happen for you because you didn’t have the courage to do it.

And that was the best. It was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Wow. Wow. 

Michael: right after that, you guys are essentially starting over, starting from zero, 

Rory: not just essentially zero. We were, so both of our incomes went straight to zero. We had just moved into our new house.

We had our first child. Uh, then we were not planning on starting a company at all. Didn’t, we had no plans, we had no strategy. We had no vision of this and. 

This is part of the story of what became Brand Builders Group, which is what we do today and has grown so fast. Hmm. Is we were faced with what is our identity and who are we?

Hmm, and what now? We were so all in on one thing and God literally. It went evaporated overnight and my social media falling was owned by the company. Um, oh, our podcast. Our podcast. Our email list. Our email list. Wow. Our, um, 

AJ: all of our social media accounts, 

Rory: EE everything was an asset of the company. And so all of that went to zero.

Our team disappeared, like, and we had no plan. And literally like the day this happens, we get a call. From Lewis Howes, which was a friend that I had been on his podcast, so wouldn’t take the stairs. So our first book, when it hit New York Times, I was 29 and I got invited onto Lewis’ Show and he had this like New School of Greatness podcast, right?

And so I thought he was really cool because he was the same age as me and I was like, dude, you should write a book one day. And he’s like, I’m actually thinking about it. And I said, well, let me show you. Like I’ll tell you. You know, let me help you. Here’s how we hit the New York Times, essentially with like no following and no fame and no celebrity.

And like, here’s how we pulled this off. 

And, um, and so we became friends that way and then we lost touch. Um, and it, he wasn’t a client or anything. We were just like, I wanna say we lost touch. 

AJ: We hadn’t heard from Lewis in years. 

Rory: Years. Wow. And literally the day this goes down, you know, it’s like Lewis calls and, and he goes, Hey, I don’t.

No, why, but I feel like I’m supposed to call you. This is literally what he says. He has no clue. And he says, amazing. My business has grown a lot. Um, uh, we’re doing, you know, multiple millions in revenue and, and, um, my podcast has grown some, but like. It’s chaotic. I’m not, I, I’m making a lot of money. I’m not keeping a lot of money.

I’m working like crazy. I’m pulled in a thousand directions. I’m hiring all these people and I feel like I need your brain on my business. Is there any chance you’d be available? Uh, lemme think about it. Yes. 

And so, ironically, 

AJ: we have a lot of time on our hands right now. It’s like 

Rory: calendar’s open. So Louis comes to our house 

AJ: literally same week 

Rory: and we don’t have any content.

We have no plan. We’re just. Asking him questions, and we start walking him through, sitting in our basement through a process. And at the end of it, he goes, this was the most powerful business experience I’ve ever had. Mm, this is what you guys were born to do. Wow. Wow. And this is your new business. 

Megan: What a literal godsend.

Rory: A literal godsend. It was like, no, no, this is not our business. It was like, we don’t have a business. Like we just got out of business. Like all we’ve been doing is working, like we’re, we’re gonna like lay low for a minute. And he’s like, no, no, this is. What you’re supposed to do. And he said, well, and then, and it was like, well, Louis, we don’t, we don’t have a team.

We don’t have an email database. We don’t have a software. Like we don’t have a bank account like a, um, we have nothing. We have not, no nothing. And and he said, that’s okay. I’m gonna have you on my show and we’re gonna tell the whole world that this is what you do. And, um, unbelievable. And so, and he did.

And he did. And so we. 

Over the next like six months had over 1000 people request a free call from that podcast interview. Mm-Hmm. Oh my gosh. 

AJ: But I have to like, this is a really important part of like how Brand Builders got started because we are a personal brand strategy firm. Mm-Hmm. We help individuals build their personal brands.

Mm-Hmm. And when we went on Lewis’s show, we didn’t even have a website. Much less individual websites. No social media all, we had no social media all gone. No podcast, no email list. We had nothing, and we had an uns stylized landing page with a picture of us with an orange button that said, request a call here.

Michael: Sort of a sales prevention program 

AJ: that it was. Like it was really the power of understanding that those are not the things that build a personal brand. 

Megan: Yeah. What 

AJ: builds a personal brand is the relationships that you build offline. Mm. And the trust that is established. Mm-Hmm. By doing the right thing.

Mm-Hmm. Even when it has no benefit to you. And it was because of the trusted audience that Louis had in the trust he had in us that then they trusted us. And those were just like light bulbs going off left and right of how we were supposed to help people build their personal brands. Not just the idea of it, but how to do it, which was much more about.

Trust and reputation and character and like really doing what you’re uniquely designed to do. Yeah. Not just how do you do it so you can launch a webinar 

Rory: and not colors and fonts and logos and copywriting and what technology and marketing automation and you know, like what equipment do you use and all of those things, you know, enter into the conversation.

But they’re all tactical things. The strategic thing is that we say personal branding. Is simply the digitization of your reputation. Mm. That’s powerful idea. It’s really idea. It’s a powerful, it’s really reputation. 

Megan: What I love about this story, first of all, I’m just like on the edge of my seat that everything you say, I’m like, I can’t believe that happened too.

Um, but I love that the worst thing that ever happened to you was also the best thing that ever happened to you. And I think that’s such a takeaway for you listening that. I mean, I, I would say this is true in our own lives too. I mean, we can think about so many struggles that we’ve had and like why you wouldn’t wanna relive that.

That sounds like a horrible day, the meltdown day, but. You, you couldn’t be where you are today. Absolutely. And the other thing is that you now have a company that’s all about identity and this process was necessary for you to go through in order to excavate your own identity and separate it from kind of this ego piece that was keeping you from getting the double win and really keeping you from ultimately what you were made to do.

A hundred percent. It was in the way. It had to get out of the way. And what a gift. It’s like a severe mercy. 

 

Michael: So when you started this new business. 

Especially having the experience you’ve had AJ with the prior company, did you intentionally say, we’re gonna allow Rutten for life?

AJ: Yes, and honestly, that was one of the reasons why getting fired was such a godsend blessing. It’s like it really did have to be burned to the ground in order for us to have any hope to build something that we wanted. I don’t, this was not one of those things that we could have just made some subtle changes and it’s like, no, it had to be burned to the ground for us to go.

Yeah. Burned to the ground for 

Rory: us. The company’s still go. Yeah, the company’s is still doing great for, for us as far as we know, but like, 

AJ: um, but this was an opportunity for a true do over a true clean slate. Start over. And we said in this next iteration of life and business, we have to be able to do everything we do between the hours of nine and five.

Mm. And after that, 

Rory: it’s a cliff. It wasn’t a boundary, it was a cliff. It was like, you know, there’s not, it wasn’t like a guardrail. It’s like at five o’clock, like we are 

AJ: done. 

Rory: You shut the laptop, you stop taking phone calls, you, you have to be done. 

AJ: And we’re not super hardcore about it based on the season that we’re in, but I have two awesome little accountability partners that are four and seven.

Who, who are my accountability partners. And they bust up in my office and they’re like, you’re done. And I’m done. No matter where I am. Yeah. But it was an opportunity for us to go, how do we wanna do life? How do we wanna do family? How do we wanna do work? And really what it gave us the opportunity for, at least in our lives, was to invite God into our business.

Hmm. And say, God, this is yours. We will, you know, I love that saying, it’s like work, like only you can pray like only he can. Mm. And it was like, we will work. To every ounce of our being from nine to five. And after that, God, it’s up to you. Mm-Hmm. You do what you wanna do with this and that. That other time is protected and my spiritual life has gotten better.

I actually have a dedicated regimen of time with the Lord. Time, reading, time with my kids, time with my husband, time for myself. Now I don’t get it every day. Right. But I didn’t have that before. 

Rory: So we worked with Lewis Howes to tie back to that story really closely for like two and a half years. Hmm. And it, it. In the first eight years of his, his show, he’s okay. He went from like, he’s hanging in there. He, he got to like 30 million downloads in the first eight years.

Wow. And then in the two and a half years we worked with him, he went from 30 million to 500 million downloads. Woo. And he gives us a lot of credit publicly, more than, more than we deserve. And what people don’t always understand is to go, like, we didn’t teach Lewis how to be a great podcaster. We didn’t.

Teach him like an algorithm hack or like the secret hashtags or anything. But what we did do was when Lewis first came and spent the first two days with us, he had 17 streams of revenue. He wore that proudly because you hear this advice, which I think is terrible advice on the internet to have multiple streams of income.

Mm-Hmm. And so we had 17 streams of, of, of, of income. And what. We said, as we said, Lewis, this one little thing over here that is the podcast, it’s not making a lot of money, but that seems to be where all the natural momentum is. That seems to be where your joy is. That seems to be the thing that is over-indexing for you in terms of the amount of time and energy you’re putting in and the results you’re getting back.

What would happen if you went all in on that thing? Hmm. 

And one of our core beliefs, which actually was, comes out of the Take the Stairs book, you know, it was written a long time ago, that we’ve now seen with Lewis and now seen in our own life and now seen with hundreds of our personal brand strategy clients, is if you have diluted focus, you get diluted results.

Megan: Hmm. 

Rory: It is as simple as that of going, if I have 10 units of resource, whether that’s prayer, time, money, attention, team, technology, whatever. If I have 10 units of resource and I divide that, I spread that across 10 initiatives. Each initiative gets one unit of resource. Mm-Hmm. That’s how most of the world operates.

Mm-Hmm. So the reason there’s so much noise in the world of personal branding is people are doing lots of initiatives with very little resource. Mm-Hmm. Enough to make noise, but never enough to break through. And our whole central strategy is to go. What if we took 10 units of resource and applied it to one initiative and we went all in.

And that’s with Lewis. For him it was podcasting. Mm-Hmm. You know, with, with other clients, it’s been different with Ed Millet. You know, ed was already crushing it by the time we met him, but we were able to help him really focus on a book launch. We helped him pre-sell 117,000 copies of his book, which is crazy and it’s unbelievable in just a few months.

And then the book comes out, hits all the best seller list. He goes on to sell over a million copies in the first 18 months and like. His keynote fee doubles. I mean, if the whole it, a lot of things grow and 

Megan: but that was downstream of the focus on the one thing. 

Rory: Yeah. That was a focus for a season, right?

Mm-Hmm. Again, so many of our clients, I mean here, here’s a good strategy is pick clients who’re gonna be successful with or without you, and then once they’re successful, you get to take credit for it. Um, that’s a good, that’s a good, smart, smart business 

AJ: strategy. But on this strategy of diluted focus gets diluted results.

Although we’re talking about it specific to personal branding, the same thing applies. For anyone who’s listening with your team, with your schedule, with your kids, with your marriage. Mm-Hmm. 

And I just, you know, as a working mom, I see all the time. It’s like I have so many friends that are like, sorry, can’t do this.

We’re at baseball. Sorry, we can’t do this. We’re at soccer. And it’s like some kids on our soccer team are on three sports on the same day. And I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And they have three 

Both: kids. There’s two kids and 

AJ: they’re like, and the parents are like in like, no judgment, judgment, free zone. I’m just going, wait, when do you guys spend time together?

Right. The mom has these two, the dad has this one. And I literally, I just sat down and one of the things that we had said in our family was like on this effort of like, our kids are allowed to do one sport at a time, and they have to pick the same sport. Right. And it’s like, that’s smart. You guys pick whatever you want, but one sport, one field, one team won all the things because we’re not gonna sacrifice the the unit time together.

Mm-Hmm. And that was, again, these are decided choices, but it’s like you look up one day and you wonder why you’re exhausted and it’s like, well this’s because you’re doing all the stuff. 

Megan: Mm-Hmm. And it’s the 

AJ: same thing in our schedule’s. Like one of the things we just even talked about this week is the whole idea of having a calendar block schedule with 10 things I have to get to today just.

It’s actually not feasible. Mm-hmm. And it’s like the goal is if I can get one thing done today, 

Megan: mm-Hmm. 

AJ: That’s the goal. What’s the one thing that I have to get done today? Mm-Hmm. Right. This was like, we just had this conversation with Rory, his is one a week. Like what’s the one thing that I can get done this week?

And. If you, if you’re trying to do more than that, it’s like, it’s why we all feel burnt out. Right? Yeah. And overwhelmed. 

Michael: And 

AJ: overwhelmed. And it’s because we’re just trying to do too much. What other non-negotiables do you guys have?

Megan: ’cause this is different for everybody. Mm-Hmm. But I think this is a key to getting the double win is saying. These are the few things that we’re taking a stand for and we’re not gonna compromise on, and there’s a lot of other stuff we’re willing to let go. So what are those things for you guys? Date night on Wednesdays.

Rory: Day, night on Wednesdays. Okay. Kids stay in their room until yellow light, which is 7:30 AM There’s a light that no sneaking out. There’s a light that comes on at seven 30 and they can, they cannot come out of their room before that time. I 

Megan: mean, we had gate feel like that, right? There could be a whole podcast that totally could, like a private podcast have.

Okay, great. You do that, don’t you? Yeah. Uh, sort of not 

AJ: very effectively right now. It’s hard. In all honesty. It’s hard, extremely difficult. Again, back to, it’s a real discipline, but it’s like markets are four and seven and only in the last couple of months did we remove baby gate. Why? ’cause you little suckers are not coming out.

This is our time, this is our time because we, we doing bible, 

Rory: we’re doing fitness. Your mom, we’re doing, we we’re doing the things. But that 

AJ: was it. That our personal like time together as a is date night is huge. Mayor that we’ve always said, you know, God first, marriage second, family third. mm-Hmm. If the marriage, marriage is good, kids are good.

Yep. Yeah. If the marriage is off, everyone is off. Yeah. So we have to keep this intact. 

Rory: The other thing that’s been. The, the newest Mm-Hmm. We’ve done those things for a long time. 

Uh, and ever since we started Brand Builders Group, you know, 2018 and Butman. And by the way, just quickly, so we went from zero to eight figures with Brand Builders Group in five years.

Megan: Woo. 

Rory: Like while having, by choosing 

Megan: non-negotiables around your life, the middle of Covid. Wow. 

Rory: Like had a baby starting from zero, a second 

Megan: baby. 

Rory: I had two kids like starting all over and you go and actively choosing less, God showed up. And created more. Wow. So a lot of, so this can 

Michael: work, it, it’s possible to scale your business to eight figures without sacrificing everything else in your personal life.

Rory: It you’re more likely to I think so, too. You’re more likely to And, and so, so one of the, so a lot of those habits we’ve had for a while, a long time. 

AJ: I mean, I spent 10 years in my former life, priding myself on, I work 80 hours a week, but I missed every birthday party, every wedding shower, every baby shower, every everything. And you don’t get that back. All in the name of success, ego, ambition, money, power, title, whatever.

And this round I was like, no, I, I want a friend. And one of the things that somebody told me during, like all this transition is they said, um, just remember if the devil can’t make you bad, he’ll just make you busy and you’ve been real busy’s and so what you gonna do about it? That’s 

Megan: right. That’s wow. 

Rory: The, the, the here’s the lucky jackpot that we hit with the intersection and why I think brand builders group is growing so fast.

We all have hit this lucky jackpot that we live in a time where it is more easy. It’s easier than ever before to make money by making an impact in the lives of others. Hmm. 

And the best piece of personal branding advice that I’ve ever heard, uh, this is not one of our quotes, but this is from a guy named Larry Wingett, and he said the goal is to find your uniqueness.

And exploit it in the service of others. 

Megan: Hmm. I love that. I 

Rory: love that too. Find your uniqueness and exploit it in the service of others. Now, Larry was never in the business of teaching people how to do that. He just said that, I heard that early in my career. Brand Builders group has built an entire curriculum and methodology around how do you find your uniqueness?

Mm-Hmm. And exploit it in the service of others. And what we found is, you know, when you look at all the noise, right? And we said diluted focus is diluted results. And you know, there’s this, this framework that we talk about called Sheehan’s Wall, where there’s two groups of people, there’s those who are unknown, and then there are those who are well known.

And there’s this huge invisible wall named, uh, that we named after Peter Shehan. ’cause this idea was originally his, we adapted it to personal branding, but instead of trying to be on all the platforms, talking about all the, all the topics to all the different audiences having multiple streams of revenue, um.

Instead figuring out and bouncing off the wall because you’re doing a lot, you’re, you’re talking, you’re, you’re saying a little about a lot to a lot of people. Just figure out what’s the one thing you can do better than anyone else in the world and go all in on that. And the shortcut to finding someone’s uniqueness from a business perspective.

Is the same intersection of finding a person’s personal purpose in life. 

Megan: Mm-Hmm. 

Rory: And what we’ve, what we’ve figured out, we didn’t know this when we started the company, but we’ve now seen it as a pattern consistently, is that for all of us, you’re most powerfully positioned. To serve the person you once were.

Yeah. You’re most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. Mm-Hmm. And so we have all this curriculum and all these exercises and things that we take people through, but, but that’s the shortcut. That’s, we, we train the strategists as go who, who’s the person they once were? That’s who their, their most natural path is to making money and making impact.

Hmm. And so the question is, what challenge have you conquered? What setback have you survived? What tragedy have you triumphed over? What, what you know obstacle have you overcome? Therein lies the intersection of a great personal brand that can make a huge amount of money in the world and a personal purpose that can give you longevity of life and being fulfilled.

And it’s like. I, I feel like that’s, that’s the work we’re doing.

Michael: I, I know we’re getting tight on time here, but I wanna make sure that when people are hearing this, a lot of people in our audience are trying to build a personal brand, and if they wanna connect with you and your company, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Rory: Yeah, so we do the first call actually with everyone for free. So we’re really Oh, great. We’re really like a one-on-one human experience type company. Um, and if you go to free brand call.com/double wind. So free brand call.com/double win. You can request a call with our team and we’ll want to just hear your story, right?

Mm-Hmm? Like we’ve been sharing our story. We’ll want to hear your story of like, what was your setback? What was your heartbreak? What was your pain? And show you the entire method that we used to go. How can that pain be? It’s not just pain from your past, it was a part of shaping you into the person that you were meant to become, so that one day you could help somebody else.

Mm-Hmm. 

Megan: It’s so redemptive so good. I love, I love that. 

we have, um, a few questions that we wanna ask all of our guests. Lightning 

Both: round. It’s kind of lightning round. 

Megan: It’s lightning ish, round, 

Both: lightning ish, you know. Okay. 

Megan: So the first one is, what’s your biggest obstacle today in getting the double win?

AJ: Saying no. Hmm. I mean, that’s the biggest obstacle. Me too. Yeah, it’s, it’s discerning what to say yes to and what to say no to. And that’s really hard. It’s really hard because there’s a lot of really good opportunities, especially the more successful you become. Yeah. And you know what it, one of the things, I actually had a conversation with my life coach about this a couple of weeks ago, and I was like, how do you say no to something that you feel like God gave you?

Like these opportunities, these, these introductions. When you feel like this was God ordained, this was divinely orchestrated. How do you know when to say no to those or Yes to those? And that’s what I’ve really been struggling with. It’s like I feel like this is from God. I don’t think I should say no to that.

And also. It’s discerning what fits within the boundaries that we’ve already committed to. 

Megan: Mm-Hmm. 

AJ: And so it’s, it’s really tricky and it’s a really gray area of I don’t wanna say yes to everything. And at the same time, how do you discern those things that are really for you? Yeah. Uh, and that really aren’t, so that’s, that’s the biggest obstacle.

That’s, that’s good. Rory, what about you? 

Rory: So, very much connected to that is, I think, you know. The ambition for more that just more is better, more is needed, more is necessary. Mm-Hmm. Is, is is a part of what I think that is, is the drive for why it’s hard to say no. Yeah. Um, that’s insightful. I, I will say that.

Um, so our second book, so procrastinating on Purpose by Permissions to Multiply Your Time, and I did a TED Talk that went viral on this. Mm-Hmm. Is all about something called the focus funnel, which is how to decipher what to say yes to and. I do feel like I’ve had a massive amount of clarity in that ever since doing that work.

Because the premise is the way you multiply time is by saying yes to things today that create more time tomorrow. Ooh, that’s good. You spend time on things today that create more time tomorrow. That’s the premise of the whole book and talk. And anything you say no to today creates time tomorrow because it’s preventing you from doing something you would’ve otherwise been doing.

Right? But then the things that you choose to say yes to, there’s some things that it’s like, I can say yes to it now, but it might actually create more work tomorrow. It might cost me more time tomorrow. There’s other things that I can spend time on once that cost me time today, but it creates a system, a process.

You know, eliminate, automate, delegate is mm-Hmm. You know, big part, uh, the book of going. It creates time tomorrow. So that is the struggle that we have. And then also for me at least, the strategy of going. Is the thing that I’m doing right now, something that is going to multiply? Is it going to create more time tomorrow than I have right now?

That’s great. 

AJ: On that, really quick, ’cause I know this is a lightning round and we know we’re, we’re very chatty, but I do think it’s really important because like even though we have these things, we came up with these strategies, we still really struggle with them. Struggle with them. I just mentioned like two weeks ago, Rory said, yes, let’s go do this thing.

Go all in. Knowing it was gonna cause a butt load of work for everyone downstream. It was 

Rory: exciting. It could be so much revenue, like it was gonna be such a big thing. 

Michael: We may or may not have done that before. 

AJ: Yeah. That is like everyone times has the permission to change their mind. Yeah, right. That’s great.

Just because you’re going a hundred miles an hour doesn’t mean you can’t hit on, hit the brakes and go, I’m going in the wrong direction here. So Good. It’s like we all have the permission. Good to say stop. Good. This is not the right direction anymore. Yeah. That, so you got, you gotta 

Megan: do that and we’ll link to the TED Talk and the books as well.

Okay. So in a sentence for each of you, how do you personally know that you’ve gotten the double win? 

Michael: Uh, and both of you’re very self-aware. 

Megan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Michael: So how do you know 

AJ: when you’re like, yeah. Got it. I go first. 

Michael: You go first. 

AJ: Um, for me, I know this is gonna sound kind of cheesy, but there is, there is literally an inner sense of peace.

Yeah. Hmm. Uh, my soul feels settled. I. Hmm. And I know on the days when I’m like, I got the wind today is like, I feel settled. That’s great. And on the days where I can’t sleep or I’m waking up early, and it’s like Rory always says, I’m waking up bursting with ideas. And it’s like, if I wake up bursting, it’s not a bad thing.

But I also know that my, my soul is not settled. Mm-Hmm. 

Megan: Uhhuh. 

AJ: And there is something about having a settled piece. Mm-Hmm. Of just going like, I did it right today. Hmm. I may not get it right tomorrow, but today I did it. Right. That’s really good. 

Rory: Excellent. I was gonna say the exact same thing. Copycat. I think 

Megan: it’s like you’re married.

Rory: I think peace is the new prophet. Wow. Peace is the new profit. It’s, it’s, it used to be money and then it was like followers and influence and now it’s like people have figured out. Yeah. And it’s like, no, it’s, it’s peace. Mm-Hmm. Yep. It is going. You can, it’s not out there. It’s in here. You could be. We, we, we had five billionaire clients in the last couple years.

Billionaires. We’ve got the biggest podcast hosts in the world, people with millions of followers, and we’re interfacing with ’em every single day. And it’s like, none of that’s gonna satisfy you. Mm-Hmm. Like, none of, none of it is going to do. It’s, it’s. Do you feel? Do you feel peaceful? 

AJ: Yeah. One of our family mantras for 2024 and maybe permanently is that we use money to save time.

We don’t spend time to make money. Right. Oh. And so I think a huge part of that is just really believing. We don’t need more money. We do need more time. Mm-Hmm 

Megan: mm-Hmm. And we need, that’s the only thing you can’t get more of. Mm-Hmm. 

Rory: And we don’t need more money. We need 

Michael: less stress. 

Megan: Yeah. Absolutely. That’s so good.

Okay, la Sorry. 

Michael: Well, I was just gonna say, I think, I think so many. People today, I think 20% by all the studies I’ve seen suffer from anxiety. 

Megan: Mm. 

Michael: And probably it’s another 20% that’s just undiagnosed. But I, all the entrepreneurs I know, all the business owners I know really struggle with this. Mm-Hmm. And are desperate for peace.

Mm-Hmm. So I think you’re right on. 

Rory: Well, and I have to give you a shout out there because I feel like. Y your role, I think in, in my life, at least Michael, as a mentor directly, I feel like you’ve really championed this double win and this message for years. Thank you. And to see someone like you and, and, uh, and now what the whole company is about.

Right. And full focus and just going like, you actually can have a double win. It means a lot when people at your level of influence and impact say no. There, there you. You actually can do this a different way. Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm. So thank you. We need models you for that. We need models. We need models. 

Megan: Okay. Last question.

What is one ritual or routine that you have that helps you get

AJ: the

Megan: double win?

AJ: Oh, my morning routine and I had a horrible morning routine for most of my life, but in the last three years, I have the best morning routine that is working so well for me. So I wake up every single morning and uh, I do, I was traditionally not an early morning person, but now it’s like I get up at five 30 or six ’cause I realize is the only personal time I’m gonna get.

Mm-Hmm. So I get up early to get it and I immediately start with some sort of short devotional, one or two pages. Um, then I will read my Bible first of the day. And then I read, um, a book. So I read two books every single month. Um, it’s just a part of my routine and I usually read a whole chapter of a book.

I have my coffee, then I have my second cup of coffee, um, and then I go on some sort of walk or something all in the morning part of the day. And it’s like, I don’t take calls before 10:00 AM so no calls before 10 mm-Hmm. Because that whole morning routine is for me. 

Megan: Yes. And 

AJ: it’s to settle and it’s to be in the word, it’s to connect, it’s to remind myself.

It’s to think, it’s to get clear and it’s to have some movement. Mm-Hmm. And that if I do that every day, I am a good person. Wow. I love that. If I don’t, it sets you for success. I’m not, yeah. Yes. 

Rory: Yeah. That’s fantastic, Rory. Yeah, so, so morning routine is key, but I’m gonna say for sure, brand builders group also was born and consistently has happened.

Through a two hour walk that AJ and I do every Monday morning. 

Megan: Ooh. 

Rory: And we do the prime time nine to 11:00 AM Monday morning, we go on a walk for two hours and that is business time. Mm-hmm. Right. So we try to not have business talk on nights and weekends. Mm-Hmm. But nine to 11, every Monday we go on a walk and we have our discussion list.

And so we have a place to park. Issues. Disagreements, ideas. Ideas on a discussion list, updates that is specifically business focused and there’s protected time to have it. And AJ gets heated, 

Both: like, I have no to say this, 

Rory: aj. There’s a 

AJ: reason it’s on a walk. 

Both: Um, and so not in 

AJ: an office. Gotta move that for her to like be 

Both: burning the energy, like as you’re brainstorming and.

Discussing, 

Rory: uh, things, there was some air 

Megan: quotes there if you’re listing and not watching. 

Rory: Yeah. Um, it’s, it’s been transformative so much so that we have been fighting to get more time in our week to do that. And so now this year we introduced Wednesday mornings. Um, 

AJ: but I will tell you because we are married and in business together, um, doing this in hikes.

And walks, um, has not only been super beneficial for our company. Mm-Hmm. ’cause we’re actually having time to strategize together. Go figure. But it’s been so good for our marriage. Mm-Hmm. Because we don’t have the time on nights and weekends, and typically we don’t agree on many things when it comes to the business.

And I just walk faster and I burn it out. We’ve had so many fewer tips. Disagreements by just doing this out in nature and being reminded. It’s like, whatever this is, is so small. Look at how big this is. Yeah. Wow. We’re so, this is so small. That’s so smart. And it has been revolutionary for our business and our marriage.

Michael: Yeah. So I, this is kind of a tangent, but. What are the roles that you play in the company? Are you the 

AJ: CEO? I’m the CEO. 

Michael: Okay. And you work for her? 

Rory: Yeah, I, I do. I I’m, I I get that. Yeah. Megan’s the CEO and I work for her. Yeah. So, so, so we are the co-founders. Yep. Right. So we’re 50 50. We have no investors. We have no debt.

We’ve got No, no, no. So it’s just the two of us. So we, we, uh, we are equal as owners, but inside the business she’s the boss. Yeah. She sets love that she sets the pri, I’m the CMO. Effectively. Mm-Hmm. Um, and we’re trying to get me outta that even, you know, more and more. But, uh, really 

AJ: you’re the chief relationship officer.

I’m really the chief relationship officer. Yeah. And, and 

Rory: I’m, I’m the, sometimes we joke that like I’m the talking bobblehead on stage and in the books ’cause it, it like literally is true. Like, I don’t know what’s going on inside the business and every time I get involved it gets. Totally messed up. So see self-awareness, but she gets to set the agenda, right?

And so like if she’s frustrated that I’m not, like something’s not getting done, I will present to her. I’ll say, these are the three things that I’m trying to work on and I prioritize. Tell me which order I’m happy to do whatever you want me to do. Whatever order. Tell me which one you want me to do first.

And she gets to make that decision. Um. And that’s amazing. That is awesome. I mean, we’re in the middle of a, of an active thing like this, this quarter that like I have a huge priority that has been like my baby and dream for like a couple years and she has deprioritized it over something else. That is because she’s the one with the global view of the company.

Yeah. Mm-Hmm. She’s the CEO. Like even though I’m an owner, but I’m distant to like what? Mm-Hmm. Are the objectives and the dynamics of the people and the skills and the competing interests. She’s the one that has that global view. So I surrender the prioritization of the task to, to her. 

Megan: That’s amazing.

That could be a whole podcast. I know. I, I wanna have you guys back and just talk about that dynamic right there. 

Michael: Yeah. That’s amazing. That 

Megan: would be fascinating 

 

Michael: guys. 

Thank you so much for coming in. Yeah, thank you. And having this conversation face to face. It’s really fun. So cool. And I felt like, feel like this could be a series we’ve just.

Tap the surface. Well, we can do a series, so 

Rory: I mean, 

Michael: it’s fine. So for people to fight, you don’t wanna walk to you, you wanna come on a walk? I mean, can we get, can we walk with the microphones? 

Megan: Yeah, 

Michael: we could do that. So, um, again, give us the web address Yes. For the call. 

Rory: Yes. So free brand call.com/double win.

Okay. Um, one thing, write that down. Just a couple things on that real quick. Number one. Uh, most of the clients that we work with, the huge majority are not the famous ones. Mm-Hmm. I mean, yes. Lewis. How That’s 10% or less. Yes. Ed Millet, Amy Porterfield, John Maxwell. I mean, we, we, you know, Eric Thomas, the hip hop preacher.

I mean, we work with some big con that is. A sliver of what we actually do most. So you work with regular people? Most of who we work with are, we work with 

AJ: the maze of the word. Yeah. Ex experts 

Rory: and entrepreneurs. A lot of professional services. The other thing is, uh, we have, you know, we basically have three different tiers and so it’s like, you know, something for people just starting out all the way, all the way up to like, you know, big time businesses.

Mm-Hmm. So, we’ll, we’ll tell you. And, uh, we just wanna hear your story and if, if you feel, if you feel a calling on your heart that you’re supposed to share a message with the world. We believe that that calling is the result of a signal that’s being sent out by somebody else, and that person needs you actually way more than you need them.

Mm-Hmm. And our job is to facilitate that connection and the transference of what problem you have solved. That they could literally be on their hands and knees praying for answers for right now. Hmm. And you have all the answers in your head. Yep. Exactly. What to do. And we’re trying to connect the 

Michael: two of you.

That’s amazing, guys. Great way to think about it. Mm-Hmm. So your main website is brand builders group.com. You guys have a podcast called The Influential. Personal brand podcast. Mm-Hmm. And we 

Both: do together. 

Michael: Yeah, 

AJ: we do together, but not like this 

Michael: alternating weeks. 

AJ: Oh, okay. Yeah. We realized we did it together like this for a while and we’re like, well, that’s not for us.

And uh, we’re gonna need to separate. Gotta know your limits. 

Rory: We’re too chatty and heated. 

AJ: Yeah. So, but it is, uh, a great podcast. So Rory interviews. Certain types of individuals I interview. And then two, get the best of both worlds and we alternate weeks. 

Michael: That’s good. Well maybe occasionally you should do one together and just let the sparks fly.

People will be entertained by that. Maybe we’ll record a Monday walk one time. Yeah. And just like, well guys, thanks again. You are dear friends, and we’re so proud of all that you’ve done. Thank you. And we’re delighted that you’ve been here today. 

AJ: Mm-Hmm. Likewise. Thank you so much. 

Rory: Thanks for having us, guys.

Thanks for being here. Thanks for what you do in the world.

Michael: that was fun. 

Megan: That was so fun. 

Michael: I feel like we could have talked to them all day.

Megan: Literally. 

Their values are just so in alignment with ours. And what I was saying to them when they were leaving was just that we need examples of the double win 

Michael: we do. 

Megan: We need examples of what does this look like in practice, because everybody’s situation is a little different and I think it’s so helpful to realize, one, it didn’t come easily.

Michael: Mm-Hmm. 

Megan: It came. Very difficult to them. I mean, they, well, they kinda had to 

Michael: hit a brick wall. They, 

Megan: they had kind of had to hit a brick wall and really they had to do some hard inner work around ego, around their identity and, and discover something that was truer, that they wanted more than what they were getting out of kind of the accolades and the recognition and the status of their roles.

And that was really brave. I mean, that was the thing I kept thinking while they were talking. They were so brave. You know, 

Michael: I, I think Rory and AJ are doing a great job managing all of the domains of life, but if I had to kind of narrow it down to two that stood out, I think work the way they think about work. Gives them space for the rest of their life and the other domains. Yeah. But I love that. But in addition to that, I think love is a domain.

Megan: Yeah. 

Michael: That’s really stands out 

Megan: well, and they talked about that. In their marriage. They talked about that as parents with their children, but they also talked about that in the context of their work. Mm-Hmm. You know, that I, I just feel, you know, if you guys were here in the room with us, you would just feel this kind of energy of love and this desire to serve.

And I think all that comes from their love and from their faith. And I, I just love that, just that it’s everywhere for them. 

Michael: Yeah. And it was. Really interesting because they can be adversarial.

Megan: Yeah, I love that too. And,

Michael: and, uh, my wife Gail and I have often said, you know, that opposites attract and they seem pretty opposite on some things.

Opposites attract. Then they annoy. And then you get to the place where you appreciate. And I think they’re at that third level where they appreciate their differences. Mm-Hmm. And one of the surprising things, I mean, you might hear them talk about their faith and say, oh, that’s a true traditional kind of hierarch hierarchical marriage.

And you know, AJ works for Rory and I, I loved. How they turned that on its head. Yeah. 

Megan: Not so much. Yeah, not so much. Yeah. It’s really interesting. And you know that, that’s of course particularly interesting to me because, um, my husband Joel works for me. Yeah. Technically he’s our chief product officer and I work for you.

Yeah. You know, that’s really what I’m trying to do is like have a whole kind of circle of male minions just serving me, you know? Yeah. We call, 

Michael: we refer to that when you’re not around as the matriarchy. 

Megan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s great. No, I’m just totally kidding. But what I love is that there’s just this.

Kind of partnership that when you let some of those confines go, the ability to collaborate, the ability for everybody to do what they’re best at is so beautiful. And obviously, AJ is just a powerful leader and visionary and their partnership together is the best way to express their uniqueness, you know, and they’ve, they’ve just let that be what it is.

And I think that’s really cool.

Michael: Yeah. Very, very inspiring.

Megan: Very inspiring.

Michael: Hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of the Double Win. One of the things that you could do to help us get this message out about winning at work and succeeding at life is subscribe to the podcast. Listen to it as a reg on a regular basis. Share it with friends, give us a five star review that helps like you can’t believe.

We would love to have that if you sincerely believe the value’s there. 

Megan: Yeah, and we would love to have you be back with us next week. You know, this is gonna be a place where you get to hear. Real people who are achieving the double win in their life. Imperfectly, though it may be. And you’re gonna get so much inspiration from that.

Um, and you’re also gonna learn how to optimize different domains of life because all of us has have areas of strength and weakness, and this is a great place to learn more. So if you enjoyed this conversation, we hope to see you back next week. 

Michael: See you next week.