2/14/24 - 2029: Living in Tandem
Jim: Hey, you've tuned in to iWork4Him , the Voice of Collaboration for the Faith and Work Movement.
Martha: And we are your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. And our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.
Jim: Martha, before we get to that conversation, it is Valentine's Day and I love you. But I really wanna talk to Krystal Parker. Can we talk to Krystal Parker? I wanna bring in Krystal Parker, the president, CEO, Founder of the United States Christian Chamber of Commerce. Krystal, welcome back to iWork4Him.
I'm just excited about, you've got a big event coming up in April. I wanna talk about that in a second. But I wanna say, what's different about a Christian Chamber of Commerce versus that other chambers of commerce?
Krystal Parker: I think the greatest difference is we all connect with our values from a biblical worldview. And Christians doing business should be and is different than other people doing business with a worldview. And so we really support one another in that sense.
Jim: So really you could have given us that Sunday school answer, Jesus. Jesus is the difference between the US Christian Chamber and others.
But I love what you just said there, that Christians doing business should look different than the world doing business. And that's something that I didn't grow up hearing and I love that you're talking about it.
Martha: So Krystal, you are the president of the US Christian Chamber of Commerce. I'd love to just have you tell everybody why. Why is that where you, God has you right now?
Krystal Parker: I would love to know that answer as well. But really when I look back on this tapestry that God's put together for me, my background was oil and gas. An undergrad in psychology, marketing masters, and then Harvard Business School. God really placed me strategically to grow up, cut my teeth in business from a publicly traded company. And I really got to understand the landscape of business from a non-Christian perspective.
Through my faith walk and where I get to be today, I get to bring that integration of faith and work from a business perspective. Also a kingdom-advancing perspective. And I think I am the right person for the job, but certainly God had to really work on me for many years to get me ready.
Jim: Alright. Talking about this event coming up in April, your biggest expo ever for the U.S Christian Chamber of Commerce. Talk to us about it. When is it, where is it? How do people find out about it?
Krystal Parker: Orlando, Florida, April 18th, 19th and 20th. And this is the place to be if you are a business owner and a Christian. This is the mecca of conferences in Orlando, Florida. You can find out more about it on Uschristianchamber.com, but basically believers from all over the globe are coming into Orlando to grow their network, to grow their business, and to understand what it means to bring God back into the center of their business so that they can reach more, do more, and achieve more with the Holy Spirit and with one another in unity.
Martha: Awesome. And we will have the links in the show notes for people that didn't grab that right now, but give us a little sneak peek. Who are some of the speakers that we'll be anticipating and some of the topics we'll be hearing about?
Krystal Parker: We have this really cool panel that we're going to do. It's the Odyssey of Love and Purpose. We're told in the Bible we need to have our priorities straight, and when those priorities get out of bound, then it's hard to have a solid business.
And that's really important from a biblical perspective. I did it wrong the first time, and we are bringing in power couples just like the ones that are on this show today to help. The people that are there understand what it means to have a strong foundation, strong marriage, and have their priorities straight.
So it's God first, family, and then our businesses. And you bring that topic into a room of business owners, they may think that is absolutely crazy. So we're bringing in industry leaders, thought leaders, to help us deliver topics that are aligned with the Bible for businesses, to help businesses grow the right way.
Our emcees for this event are awesome and it's the two of you! And so we wanna have fun and just by bringing you guys on stage and helping be that glue for this expo, it's gonna be high energy, lots of fun, lots of connections, and it is the place to be in 2024. So don't miss it.
Jim: So the website Uschristianchamber.com. Krystal, and then all the information on the expo is right there?
Krystal Parker: It's right there. Conference 2024, click it and you'll learn all about it.
Jim: Krystal Parker with the U.S. Christian Chamber, thanks for being on iWork4Him today. Look forward to talking to you next week, but thanks for giving us a little sneak peek into what's coming up in April. And Happy Valentine's Day!
Krystal Parker: Happy Valentine's Day!
Jim: All right, so as I said, it is Valentine's Day. Is this really a holiday or just a hallmark excuse for cards and roses? The world may never know. When we were on the radio five days a week, Martha and I did a weekly show called Together on Tuesdays with Jim and Martha, where we talked about the intersection of marriage and business.
We loved those episodes because there's so much to learn about how our faith, marriage, and work are related. Now, most of our episodes focus directly on faith and work related topics, but today is Valentine's day, so we need to step back into our role as marriage mentors and share some time with you.
We've invited some of our friends from California, Robert and Kay Lee Fukui from. I was gonna say power Couples by design, but that's the old one. It's now Marriedentrepreneurs.co. They're gonna join us for our conversation about how business can encourage healthy marriages. Robert and Kay Lee, welcome back to iWork4Him.
Robert Fukui: Hey, Jim and Martha. It's great to be back. I know it's gonna be a fun one.
Kay Lee Fukui: Yes. Thank you so much. Yeah, we're gonna have a great time today.
Jim: Each of us, we've had Valentine's days all of our lives and sometimes there's favorite memories or maybe Valentine's nightmares. Robert, why don't you share one of your favorite Valentine's, memories or nightmares?
Robert Fukui: Well, God bless. I have not had the Valentine's nightmare. They've always been very pleasant. None of those. So really good one. All of our Valentines sounds like a cop out. All of our Valentines are great, right? But one of the thing interesting things about our Valentines is we don't, we don't go out to dinner or to a restaurant on the day of.
And so what we do is we cook a really, we like to cook anyway, so we cook a fabulous meal, whether it's, duck breasts or ossobuco or something like that. And then either before or after, then we go out to a nice restaurant because the practical side of me says it's too expensive, it's too crowded.
The wait staff can't really tend to you like they normally would. In fact, one of our waiters at our favorite restaurant, one year when we went the Saturday afterwards, he even said. Don't come on Valentine's for the exact same reasons. And so I said, oh, because I felt justified. But last year we went to Park City the week before Valentine's.
And we already, on Valentine's day, we're already gonna make a nice meal at home anyway. But there in Park City, we're skiing. We had a nice dinner. We were sitting outside the, outside the hotel in the fireplace. It's a ski-in-ski-out resort. So you see the slope is right there.
They did a a light show on the snow and then they ended with fireworks in the sky. And so that week, valentine's for us is like a whole experience. It's not just one day.
Jim: It's just a whole experience. Aw.
Robert Fukui: And so we just really just, we just milked it for all it's worth.
Jim: I think fireworks in the mountains where there was a lot of snow seems to be like a bad idea. Avalanches occur to anybody? I don't know. It seems like beautiful, nothing's gonna catch fire.
Martha: Oh, you did, you did plenty of them in Minnesota but we didn't have hills and we didn't have mountains.
Jim: Yeah. So Kay Lee, what about you? You got any of those Valentine's nightmares or memories maybe before Robert came into your life? It was around one of those ones you're like, yeah, Valentine's day. Not good.
Kay Lee Fukui: It wasn't Valentine's, but I remember it was before, way before Robert, now that you mentioned it. We were in Santa Barbara in California and it was a weekend and he had asked me out and he said for a date, and it was probably like a Friday or Saturday.
And I said, sure, fine. So we get in the car and we drive up there. It was in Ventura, so it was like an hour away. We're driving around trying to find this restaurant, driving around. Took forever to find it. And then he finally finds it. We get in, we walk in. I'm like, of course you know we have reservations 'cause it's Santa Barbara, which is very busy, especially in downtown. Walk in, no reservation.
And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. So I think we ended up going across the street and just getting like a quick bite or something to eat. But we went to In-N-Out Burger. Yeah. I was not happy 'cause I thought who in the right mind goes out on the weekend in Santa Barbara and doesn't have a reservation and no plan? Unlike you, Honey. Mr. Planner. So that was probably my biggest nightmare because I wasn't happy 'cause it just didn't turn out well. There was no thought involved.
Jim: I actually don't know the answer to this question, Martha, for you.
Martha: I thought you were just gonna maybe share a little bit about our, prenup. Yeah. So I'm gonna share our little story. We, when we got married, we had not really an official legal prenup as most people would think, but a binding, emotional contract. I had asked him to please go bold gracefully, and to not end up with a big comb over.
Jim: Why is it with the Japanese guy with all the hair is laughing? That's what I wanna know. Why?
Martha: So there was generational reasons for this. Let me just tell you. So I was like, please don't do a comb over. Just, do whatever you need to. At that time people weren't shaving their heads, but thank the Lord. Trends have helped with that. But anyway, Jim says if I'm gonna agree to that, then there needs to be something that I get in exchange for that. So Jim, what did you come up with?
Jim: So I said, after thinking about it for just a little bit, I said, okay, here's the deal. I'll go bald gracefully, but only if on Valentine's day and Mother's Day, there's no expectation for flowers, none. I can buy 'em if I want, but there's zero expectation. And she agreed, and I was good with that. I was good with that. And so not only have we saved thousands of dollars on flowers, but tens of thousands of dollars on haircuts over the last twenty-five years.
Martha: We just shave it. So yes, that was our, it's cute. It's fun. It's a. Fun thing for us to, joke about, but it was something that we just early on in our marriage we're like, we're just gonna agree on these couple little principles that are gonna help us in life. And they sure have.
Kay Lee Fukui: Did she get roses 363 days? The other days?
The other two days?
Martha: It's so cute. 'cause actually he loves to, like, when you go to Sam's or Costco, flowers are so inexpensive there and so he, and they're big, huge bundles and he always wants to buy me.
Jim: Did you just call me cheap live on radio right now?
Martha: Nope. Not gonna go there. No, practical. So practical. So he always is oh, I wanna buy you a bundle of roses. I said, you can buy me flowers, but let's just get something beautiful and colorful. Like roses to me are they're so symbolic and I guess I just, anyway, so I let him buy me flowers whenever we're, he wants to when we're out and about, or he'll bring them home periodically and now he lets me grow gardens that I can just cut all my own flowers.
Jim: It was a group participation plan. Now that we live in Missouri, we have lots of land. She has lots of gardens, but yeah, I always thought Valentine's day was an evil day, especially in elementary school when all everybody's sent in a little Valentines and you're like, that was just evil. It, seriously, that was just an evil time because you always felt bad for the kid that got two Valentine's. Or none.
Kay Lee Fukui: When we were kids, you took one for everybody in the whole class.
Martha: Yeah, I know. What kind of class were you in? I hope that our listeners are having fun so far. It's just set it up today for this great conversation 'cause it really is about what we want to dig into, in how important our marriages are.
Jim: And how business can encourage marriage. Yes. People are like, how does that have anything to do with each other? The statistic in our minds is we got into marriage mentoring in ninety-nine. So a long time ago already.
This is our twenty-fifth year. And what we saw is that business people accomplished all these incredible things so they could provide for their family and their kids. And yet they did all of that and they neglected their family and their kids and their wife in doing it, or their spouse in doing it. Wasn't just always the men neglecting, but they destroyed everything they were working towards.
And we see the same thing in pastors that they work so hard to grow a big church, they forget the very people that it was their number one and two ministries in life anyway. And we became marriage mentors because we got sick and tired of seeing people's marriages implode. It happened right before us in a small group where all of a sudden this marriage just went (explosion sound) in front of everybody just like that.
I'm like, I don't ever wanna see or experience that again. How did you guys get into it?
Robert Fukui: It's interesting, 'cause talking about pastors as well, and we felt the same way. My dad was a pastor. Was a pastor. He's passed now, but he was a pastor. Kay Lee's dad was an entrepreneur.
Like when we got together and we're comparing notes, it was like it's the same thing, and when you think about it, running a church is very much like running a business. I mean it's, in principle, it's the same thing. You're running an organization, you've got people coming, you've got income coming in, expenses going out.
But yeah, how we got into this, and I always cringe when someone calls us marriage experts or mentors because that's not what I ever thought I'd be doing. But also, we're primarily business consultants. We just have a heart for these married entrepreneurs.
Like you're showing, saying how we noticed. That they're accomplishing some great things in their business, but yet they're neglecting home. And just from childhood, experiencing that ourselves as parents that were I won't say they're purposely neglecting, but they were doing what they knew how to do.
Culture teaches us to achieve these things at the cost of, sometimes at the cost of the family, and they just think that as long as they achieve financial success, then everything else takes care of itself, which of course we know it doesn't. So just from our own childhood upbringing, then as we noticed ourselves, as we were building our business and then noticed the business owners we're consulting with, seeing that disconnect.
We're like, Hey, something's going on here that no one's really addressing. It's the elephant in the room no one's really addressing. So that's how we walked or fell into it.
Kay Lee Fukui: Yeah. And then with my upbringing, the business became the mistress in our family.
My dad worked six days a week and a lot of times with the entrepreneur when we don't know what else to do, the go-to is we just work harder. We put more time in as a, as opposed to trying other things that can help you.
Martha: Such a good point. So what is something common that you guys are seeing in the marriages of the business owners that you're working with?
Robert Fukui: So it's just that tension, like you're saying the tension of, how do you prioritize marriage? As you're building this thing, the thinking goes, and it's, again, it goes back to how culture has ingrained in us that in order to just achieve financial success, in order for the business to succeed, you gotta put whatever time it needs, whatever it takes.
And hopefully relationship takes care of itself as you build financial success. And so the tension is how do you do both well? And you think that if you prioritize marriage and family, it automatically means you're taking your foot off the accelerator in the business and it's, the business is gonna suffer.
And that's the thinking. And so there's the, we wanna focus on marriage yet what, what's gonna happen in the business? The business is gonna implode. And so that's the commonalities, to set that tension of how do you do both of these things?
Jim: Kay Lee I saw pain in your face when you talked about your dad having a mistress, his business.
How have you worked through that? To make sure that you and Robert don't suffer from the same thing? Because that's a tough deal. You guys are successful entrepreneurs and you're successful marriage mentors. And you're marriage experts, Robert. That's what you said. What, how do you deal with that? How do you process that?
Kay Lee Fukui: Yes, that is a lot to process through. We knew one thing . We loved our parents and our families, but we didn't wanna grow up in the same situations. So we are very intentional. Some of the things we do is we have a weekly meeting once a week, and we talk about our finances, we talk about our calendar, so I know what the expectations are.
Is Robert gonna be traveling? Is he gonna be doing a lot of speaking engagements? Because if he is, then we need to be able to put some time in where we're gonna be together, like in the next couple weeks, things are gonna slow down. So I have expectations, I know what to think, and then that kind of just brings me peace knowing I'm not gonna, just be off to the wayside while he's running the races.
And we talk about our finances. We talk about, oh, one great thing. We give a, an encouraging word to each other each week. We're intentional . And we do, we pray together every morning.
And it's pretty hard to do that when you're upset with each other. You might start out praying together, being upset. By the time you're done praying for each other out loud, that's passed because there's no way you can, you can do that, at least from my experience.
Jim: Oh, that prayer thing. It's super powerful. We teach couples that all the time. What was it that you say, Martha ? Couples that pray together,
Martha: stay together.
Jim: Yeah. What a great thing.
Robert Fukui: And do you know there's actually stats to back that up?
Jim: I'm sure there are. I love that. I'm not a stat guy, but, okay. What are the stats?
Robert Fukui: So peer research, which is a secular research company, actually I think it was about 20, 25 years ago, did a research on couples that pray together daily. So not just meal time prayer, but like actively praying together, and they showed that the couples that pray daily together, that the divorce rate was one in over 1100.
So basically less than a fraction of 1%. And so the saying is not just a saying, it's not just something you say from the pulpit, but it's backed by data. And psychologists will say the same thing, that not so much about prayer, but you can't praise somebody and criticize someone at the same time.
Yeah. So prayer and praying for each other is a blessing, right? It is a blessing and there's encouragement. And when you're doing that daily, it's really, it really changes the atmosphere and it also sets the tone, especially when you do it in the morning like we do. It sets the tone for the day.
Because you know how many couples, and I'm guilty as charged, before we started praying daily together, I didn't encourage her daily. I didn't say positive things daily. It was almost about what we need to do. Or what you need to get done or what you didn't do. And there's nothing about really encouragement.
So you miss that. When you don't get that, then of course you're gonna backfill it with criticism or something. So anyways.
Martha: Okay. So I have a thought right now for everyone listening. This could be a gift to the your spouse, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, whatever the relationship that comes to mind when you think of Valentine's day.
Take this opportunity to initiate praying together and I would love to hear what kind of results that brings. And we're not saying pray so that. We're just saying God will honor that time together. And when you are praying together, I know what we've experienced is that you're more unified. When you're together saying, God, show us. Show us what we're supposed to do next. We have this tough decision. We have this person we're struggling with. There's a health issue, whatever it might be.
When you're walking that out together and praying together about it, there's something that - God created us to be more unified because of it and to be in alignment with him.
And Jim, we do the triangle thing and it's we're at the bottom of the triangle and God's at the top. And the more we both grow towards God, we grow closer together. And so that whole concept on Valentine's Day, it's fun to really look at that in its special way and say there is a purpose behind that. There's a reason why that is such a powerful part of the relationship.
Jim: So that triangle thing came from the c-rated movie Marriage Retreat. A Christian marriage retreat. Not the other one.
Martha: Yes. Yeah. A really good, a really good movie. But it was a little bit on the cheese factor side in some of the, filming.
Jim: It was all Wisconsin. That's right. Alright. Listen, as a couple, Martha and I are together a lot. We work together, we serve together, we do DIY projects constantly. We've been friends for forty-two years. A few years ago we took time to write a trilogy of books together. Now that was a project that stretched our marriage.
Needless to say we love sharing our resources, this resource, this trilogy with our listeners. If you make a donation of any size to iWork4Him, we'd be happy to send you a copy of any of those requested titles. iWork4Him, iRetireForHim, or sheWorks4Him. . I guess you say it's our Valentine's gift to you.
Just go to iWork4Him.com/donate and we will get a copy out to you when you make that donation. Alright, so let's talk about the topic of the day. Besides what we've been doing already, 'cause we've been having a lot of fun. I am convinced that a Christ-following business owner can encourage marriage at work.
What do you guys think that looks like?
Robert Fukui: Encourage marriage at work, like to other people or just,
Jim: I'm just leaving it open there. I'm not leading you up. Just we're, I'm convinced that it's possible to encourage marriage at work. I know that can be twisted.
Kay Lee Fukui: What comes to mind for me is I agree with that and I think a big deciding factor in that is making sure you're each in the right seat. Because if we are doing something that we love, then you wanna go to work, you wanna spend time with your spouse. It's a lot more harmonious as opposed to take it from me, I've been in the wrong seat before and it's caused a lot of friction and frustration for both of us. ' Cause a lot of times we marry someone that has different giftings than us, so making sure they're in the right seat and you allow them to use their giftings and encourage that.
Jim: Martha, add to Kay Lee. What is something, some way you think business owners can encourage and help grow Marriages? To encourage marriage?
Martha: So, one thing I think of is even when we had one season where Jim and I didn't directly work together every day. We still had side gigs and everything, but I had a job in Christian retail. And even though we weren't working together my employees knew a lot about my marriage, my spouse, how I respected him, the decisions we made together. Like I, I shared that just in conversation to model to them what it maybe should look like.
I employed a lot of younger people and so I knew that everything I did, they were looking to the future of what would that look like for them. And so I think that we have opportunities every day to to model and to be an example for those around us. And I know you guys work with couples that are working together and think of the opportunities, how they handle conflict, how they respond to each other in front of other people, not only behind closed doors, but in front of other people.
And that example goes such a long way because they've probably, the majority haven't seen it modeled well, and so that opportunity for people to see a Christ-centered marriage is one that, my goodness, that is such a mission field right there.
Jim: It's such a loaded question, but Robert, what do you think? How can business encourage marriage?
Robert Fukui: Yeah, I follow Martha, which is saying, I think regardless of, like for us, I mean we work directly with couples and we're trying to help them. But we're always modeling whether good or bad, we're always modeling marriage and so you hope you wanna model a Christ-following marriage.
And so whether it's with clients or with employees or with just friends and family or people at church, you know everything that we do and how we interact with each other is gonna be a demonstration. And so we're always, we don't feel like the light is on us only when we're on a podcast or when we're working with a client.
But we feel that we should be authentic in our marriage no matter what the circumstance and no matter what the location and just how we treat each other. Like even if we have a disagreement in front of people, how we respect each other in that moment, even if we disagree on something. Instead of arguing, having conflict, we can take it home, but we can do some things and just even how we're sometimes just being honest about, what we've gone through. If another couple is going through something, instead of us just giving advice, we share from our experience when we've had this issue or this argument or whatever.
We can be authentic in showing that we have our flaws. And then, but his is how we've gone about it. And when we can demonstrate, hey, the one thing that's helped our marriage and we say even our own podcast and some of our stuff, not all of our clients are Christian, but we'll say it. One of the things that helps our marriage is praying daily together. And so we can say that, with true authenticity, because we also share our flaws.
Jim: So I love that, I love all your perspective and mine is just even a little bit more different because I think that so often... first of all, every Christian business owner listening and every pastor listening today, just understand that if your marriage is a mess, everything you touch has the danger of being in a mess as well. Because if what God has given you to steward at home is not being stewarded well, who wants to listen to you? So business owner, if you're saying marriage is a priority, then show everybody that works with you and for you that your marriage is a priority. And show your people that work with you and work for you that their marriage is a priority - above you. Because that's something we don't see demonstrated.
And pastor, you need to show—I'm speaking to you. I've been a volunteer pastor for decades. If your marriage isn't a priority and you're putting the church before your marriage, you're setting a horrible example for everybody else. Your marriage is more important than your quote-unquote ministry to the public. And if everybody sees your marriage is secondary to your your ministry, your marriage is second to your ministry, people don't wanna hear what you gotta say because they're like how can he just keeps disrespecting her? She just keeps disrespecting her husband or he keeps disrespecting his wife by all the time he spends. Who wants to listen to those people?
And I think as Christian business owners, I've seen a lot of them where they make their marriage a priority and everybody else has to work overtime. And that doesn't communicate. We need to make sure that people understand. Now, we met a guy, one of our sponsors years ago, the guy's name was Skip Stanton out of Sarasota, Florida.
And and not only was his marriage a priority, but he held a marriage retreat for his people every year so that everybody who worked for him and with him had an opportunity to work on their marriage. And he gave them 250 bucks, either attend their retreat or another retreat every year.
Martha: To invest into their marriage. Even today if people are listening today on Valentine's Day, it's not too late. I can even put a simple recipe in the show notes. You can go to the store and in a very short amount of time, get a really, if you don't have reservations already somewhere you can get a special dinner on the table for your loved one to show them that they are a priority.
And it's not just about Valentine's Day, Jim, it's about doing it every day. But this is just a day where we highlight it and we focus on it. And it's really pretty special because we get an opportunity to talk about something that a lot of people don't have. A good example in front of 'em.
It's been a while since we've had our listeners call in and leave us a message, but we would love to hear from you. So...
Jim: a Valentine's message this time!
Martha: So call our listener line at eight, six, six, seven, one. 3, 9, 6, 7, 5. And that is 8 6, 6 7 1 3 work. And you have up to a minute to leave a message and you can tell us today anything you wanna tell us about, responding to this, to the conversation that we're having.
Maybe you have a good example that you can share with us or just something encouraging for us to be able to share on the air in a future episode. But 8 6, 6 7 1 3 9 6, 7 5. Those last four digits are work. And I'll put that in the show notes so you don't have to remember it.
Robert Fukui: I'm just gonna call and leave a message says I love Jim.
(laughter)
Jim: So Robert and Kay Lee have a couple of really powerful resources, but before we get to that I want to just finish up this conversation on just giving people ideas on how they can show love to their spouse today. Because I think you said that, pastors preach it from the pulpit.
I've never heard a sermon where a pastor told me to pray with my wife. I've been going to church fifty-seven and a half years. We're telling you the four of us in Unanimousness. That's a new word. In Unanimousness are saying pray with your spouse. It's the secret sauce to a great marriage. It's fantastic.
But what's one other way, Robert, you really work on showing love to Kay Lee on a daily basis in addition to prayer?
Robert Fukui: Yeah. It's, it really is just that encouraging word. Because one I have, and this is for me, right? One, one is she likes words of affirmation. And. I wasn't brought up with that which means I'm terrible at giving it.
So I really have to work at it and be intentional about it outside of just the prayer time, but to give those words of affirmation. And it is that, and it is that quality time. Just learning the love language. That's the easy one is just learn your partner's love language and give it to them 'cause we often tend to give our partner our love language, which may not be the same. Mine's gifts.
Jim: And if you don't know about the five love languages, go to Fivelovelanguages.com.
Kay Lee, how do you show love? What's one way to, an example, a suggestion you can make to our listeners saying how to show love to their spouse?
Krystal Parker: Yeah, I love that book. That's great. I would say check in with your spouse and see how their day was, how are they doing? And when I say that, not on your phone. Look 'em in the eye. You are not cooking. Just give 'em a couple minutes and see how everything's going. Sometimes you can just tell by looking at their face how their day was before they even say anything.
I remember my sister was multitasking when my nephew was young and she thought she was really good, but she wasn't. And he just said to her, his mom, he's mom, I need you to listen to me with your face, because he knew she wasn't listening. So I'd say, give them a couple minutes and ask how they're doing, how their day was, what can you do for them?
Robert Fukui: Oh, and I take out the trash.
Kay Lee Fukui: Oh, that's so romantic.
Robert Fukui: She loves that.
Martha: Isn't that great? I have posted pictures over the years of Jim washing windows and doing different things, and I'm like, this is love right here. Love it. That is exactly right. Okay, so Jim alluded to a little bit about you guys. You guys have so many resources.
Jim: Don't you have any suggestions on ways to show love to your spouse?
Martha: Oh yes. I go to Casey's and I get a Fountain Mountain Dew, a Fountain Dew for my, for the love of my life.
Jim: And I get her at Diet Coke. Actually, it's now Coke Zero.
Martha: But again, I think it we love the Five Love languages and think it's a great way to really be able to speak the love that your spouse is looking for. But I really wanna get into their resources. Jim.
Jim: I know but I get a chance. We're gonna get into the resource. We are not gonna stop before we talk talking about the resources, but here,
Martha: hang on everybody. It might be a little longer episode today. Go ahead.
Jim: Learn these three sentences: I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Say it again. I'm sorry.
Those awesome sentences. Those sentences can change your marriage. Now, Robert and Kay Lee have a phenomenal download on their website, which is Marriedentrepreneur.co and it's Balance Marriage and Business Better. We're not gonna go into that today because they've got a new book and we really wanna talk about their new book. Tell us about Tandem.
Robert Fukui: Tandem, the Married Entrepreneur's Guide for Greater Work-Life Balance, right honey? It's a mouthful. So I figured I'd jump in. But the book is really just a compilation of kind of what we do for ourselves and for our clients of how do you do marriage and business, the term work-life balance? I know it brings up a lot of things.
Jim: It's just a fake thing. Balance is, there's no such thing as work-life balance. It's give and take. Yeah.
Robert Fukui: Yeah. You win on both sides. That feels good. And when, and you know when things are a little outta whack, right?
You feel out of balance when things are outta whack. When it's really more business and not enough honey time and all that. You can tell, you can feel it, right? So how do you get things in balance? How do you win on both sides is a big thing. And two, two key things from the marriage side is just knowing how to do conflict. Fighting fair.
And on the business side, it's working smarter, not harder, not about putting more time in, but how do you be more productive? So that's just the, in simplest form is what the book entails. And then we, of course we go into some detail around that.
Martha: I love the whole visual, like the mental visual of a riding in tandem on a bicycle. Our neighbors had a tandem bike on the beach in Florida. Did we ever get, try to get on it?
Jim: We did. It was a disaster.
Martha: I think I blocked that memory. It was a disaster. But that's not easy. It is not easy to actually ride a tandem bike. And so I love the fact that there's so many lessons and I love that you guys use that idea when you're having this conversation because it works so well.
Kay Lee, what do you have to say about it?
Kay Lee Fukui: I was gonna say, and we've got on, we got on, actually got on a tandem bike. You're right, Martha. It's not that easy. For the first time on our book tour because Robert in the past, I think he was afraid to get on the bike with me. Yeah. 'cause he didn't know what to do with me 'cause I always wanted to ride it at the beach. And he said I can't put her in the front because she's gonna be looking at all the shiny and the dolphins and the whales. Afraid I'm gonna run over a roller blader. Can't put me on the back 'cause he's afraid I'm not gonna pedal, so he doesn't know what to do.
Robert Fukui: Wow. So of course when we got on the tandem bike, she didn't pedal. 'cause obviously she had to spite me.
Kay Lee Fukui: 'cause he said, I can't put you on the back. You're not gonna pedal. So I'm like, okay, I won't pedal then. Good idea.
Jim: Yeah. It's it, yeah, the tandem bike thing, they were cute in another world.
Martha: I don't know, but I love the whole concept of it. And I do wanna talk just briefly about the download that you have available, because that is your gift for Valentine's Day to all of the listeners, right? What are they gonna find when they go out and download the Balance marriage and business better?
Robert Fukui: Yeah, there's is some guides on how to communicate better, how to resolve conflict, how to prioritize, how to make sure that your marriage is a priority. And we have a little checklist of how do you do that? What are some things that you can do on a daily or weekly basis that make sure your partner feels fulfilled and loved and served.
And on the business side, it's really looking at the time and the money you spent in the business and how do you be more productive and are more effective with that. So it can grow without you having to put more time in, but it can actually grow so you can actually get more time back and get some freedom.
Martha: I love that you actually talk about both sides of that. It's not, all focused on marriage. Let's be practical in the business. Like you said, winning on both sides. So what a great resource.
Jim: And if you're struggling to try to figure out how do I really fix this? Ask your spouse. If you're not in business with your spouse, but your spouse owns your business with you 'cause they do, 'cause if you're married, you have a spouse that's a part business owner.
If you're really struggling, ask your spouse. Don't be an idiot. I'm talking to the guys out there. If you're just stuck, ask 'em. And if you wanna know what's wrong with your marriage, ask your spouse! Don't be an idiot and try to figure it out on your own. They'll tell you if they think you're working too much. They'll just say, you know what? You work too much.
Robert Fukui: So Jim, can I add something to that myself?
Jim: You can. Absolutely.
Robert Fukui: I had to learn how to listen to my wife. Because early on in, in our marriage, before we even started the business, she had some feelings about a certain investment.
And I had done all the numbers and I said, this is a good investment and we're going all in. And she didn't have a good feeling about it. Of course she was right. So the mistake, talking about investments, cost us some money. Won't tell how much 'cause it still hurts. And then there's a second instance similar to that. And so finally I decided, I may be a slow learner, but every time she has a feeling, I probably should listen.
Jim: There's a whole other session we could talk about that one for sure. Women's intuition is a direct lane to God. Women hear the voice of God way easier than we do as men and yes, if your wife tells you don't do that. I have a bad feeling. Run like the wind in the other direction because when your wife doesn't have a good feeling, you are heading for serious trouble. There isn't a single guy on the planet that has said that story. My wife said she had a bad feeling, but it worked, all worked out fine. Never heard that story. Never.
Robert Fukui: There's still guys that continue not to listen.
Jim: You know what we call them? Knuckleheads for Jesus. That's right. Knuckleheads for Jesus. That's right. I used to own that website. Knuckleheadsforjesus.com. Because it's a thing. It's just a thing.
Robert and Kay Lee Fukui, we're so grateful for you guys. We're so grateful for all of the resources you've got out there free on your website. Marriedentrepreneur.co. We're also grateful for your ministry to power couples, and really just feeding your lives into others in the business world. Thanks for spending time with us here on iWork4Him. Happy Valentine's day to the two of you and thanks for spending it with Martha and I.
Robert Fukui: Happy Valentine's Day, Jim and Martha!
You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ Followers and our workplace, it's our mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him.