Episode 254: Improving the relationships in your life as a business owner with Jill Dzadey of Freedom Couple Counselling
It's not a problem until it becomes a problem. In today's episode, Fiona chats with Jill Dzadey of Freedom Couple Counselling. They talk about how can we improve the relationships in our lives as small business owners - romantic relationships, business partners, & so much more. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
What is Freedom Couple Counseling?
On COVID-19
Work and romantic couples
On Expectations
On Separating work and life
Tips to get the best out of any relationship
Transitioning to the new normal
Books and resources
What's next for Jill?
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
“Things aren't a problem until they're a problem. For example, if you're in a relationship and, with yourself, you're like, “I can bring this stuff to my partner. It's working well. We've got our own little thing going. It works for me. It works for him. It works for us.” That's fine. I probably see people who might get stuck in certain spaces. Sometimes when it comes to business or work, a lot of couples, including myself, can get quite stuck in that space.”
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Welcome to episode 254 of The My Daily Business Coach podcast. I'm a coach, author, speaker, and all sorts of things. I'm also a wife and a partner, and that is important because we are going to talk about all things relationships. Whether you are in a relationship, whether you want a relationship, or whether you have found that your relationship has come undone being a small business owner, this interview with an incredible guest is going to be interesting and enlightening.
It's not just for the romantic relationships that we have in our lives, it’s all relationships. Whether you are challenged by relationships in your workspace, whether you have brought people on, and maybe, for whatever reason, the staff haven't stayed. Maybe you keep coming up against the same challenges with suppliers, manufacturers, or people that are working remotely or are on a contract basis for your business. This interview episode will help you because there are so many tips and insights about how we work in relationships as small business owners.
Before we get stuck into that great interview with my lovely guest, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians on the beautiful lands on which I'm lucky enough to work, live, play, and record this podcast, and that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri of the Kulin Nation. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that it is getting into the gifting season. If you have a small business owner in your life, please know that we have gift cards available. If you don't know exactly what to get them or maybe they have told you about this podcast or told you about my work, you can get them a gift card. That can go towards business coaching. It can be buying any courses that we have. You can check out the shop and buy any of the types of courses we have.
We often have people buying them as gifts for their partner's birthday or milestone. It's lovely because we get to surprise them with this coaching or whatever else their partner has bought. Speaking of relationships, it's a great gift idea. You can find that over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/shop. Let's get into this interview episode.
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Picture this, it is the start of the pandemic 2020. I'm business coaching. I'm working with lots of different people. I'm starting to hear a common theme about relationships and the impact of people having to work from home together, particularly those with children. They're doing homeschooling. They don't have childcare. I heard from many of my clients about the impact that their business was having or that they felt was having on their relationship with their partner.
The idea is that somehow people running small businesses have far more flexibility than people who were employed or are employed. It's a common theme that I hear a lot. It wasn't new to the pandemic. I have to say that I was hearing it a lot when the pandemic first hit and we were having many lockdowns, especially here in Melbourne.
I reached out to our beautiful guest. I have to give a shout-out to Laurinda Ndenzako, who is the wonderful co-founder of Collective Closets. She's been a client and a friend for a long time. She suggested that I reached out to Jill. I originally reached out to Jill to come into the good business group and do a session, I was doing a lot of sessions with experts in all sorts of fields, and to do a session on relationships.
How can we nurture relationships when you have a business, you might have children, or you might have other big things that are coming into your life and need a lot of time and attention, how can you work on that, particularly through a pandemic? Jill and I got chatting and she ended up doing the Marketing for Your Small Business Course and Coaching program as well. What she's doing is interesting. I like the way she runs her business. I like the content that she puts out. I said, “Would you like to come on to the podcast?” She happily agreed.
I asked Jill to come on to talk about how can we improve the relationships in our lives as small business owners, both the romantic relationships, our life partners, but also the relationships that we have even with business partners or with a family that might be working for us, or people that are working for us or that come into our lives through business, whether that's suppliers, manufacturers, freelance graphic designers, or all the people that we tend to get in touch with throughout the years as a small business owner.
Jill is a couples therapist, she has a Master's in that. She has been working on her business herself. She's also a business owner, we discussed that as well, for the last few years. It's refreshing to talk to somebody like Jill who is approachable and down to earth. In this conversation, she's transparent. She goes through the same struggles in her own life. Because she's an expert and has studied this and worked in this field, it doesn't somehow mean that she's immune to feeling these challenges herself.
I love that in our interview, Jill talks about this from a perspective of a couples therapist and an expert in that field but also the perspective of somebody in a relationship and a small business owner’s perspective. She gives a holistic view of how we can all improve our relationships, particularly as small business owners.
I do want to also put out a trigger warning that we are talking about relationships. We are talking about problems that might come up in relationships. We are not talking about severe problems or toxic behavior in terms of things like family domestic violence. If you or somebody you know is struggling in a toxic and unhealthy relationship or potentially is a person within a family domestic violence experience, please know there is help available. We are touching on light subjects.
If you need help with that, please chehttps://1800respect.org.au/ You can also phone 1800-737-732. There is also help on the lifeline which is 13 11 14. The other key place, if you're in Australia, particularly check out information is Safe Steps, which you can find at SafeSteps.org.au. That has 24/7 family violence response centers. Another great one is Your Toolkit and that is YourToolkit.com. That will give you a lot of information, particularly if you are somebody close to someone experiencing this. How do you bring that up? How do you have conversations? It also goes through the multiple different things that we may not always associate with family domestic violence such as financial abuse.
We are not going into those topics when we talk about problems in relationships. We're talking on a different scale nowhere near the family domestic violence issues that are unfortunately prevalent in this country in Australia. I wanted to get Jill on from Freedom Couple Counseling and give us some advice. Regardless of where you are in your relationship and where you are in your business as well, you'll be able to learn so much from Jill's wisdom. Here is my interview with the wonderful Jill Dzadey from Freedom Couple Counseling.
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Hello, Jill. Welcome to the podcast.
Thanks for having me.
You're welcome. I have been looking forward to having this chat for a while. As I always start with everyone, how are you feeling and where are you joining us from?
Probably the easiest of those questions to answer is I'm joining from Melbourne. I'm feeling okay. I'm feeling a bit exhausted, which is probably a thing in Melbourne as we come out of winter in terms of sickness, sick kids, sick partners, and all that stuff. I'm feeling okay is probably the optimistic answer to that.
I appreciate your honesty. Everyone is feeling like that dreariness as I would describe it.
We’re over it.
Bring on summer and not too much rain. We're going to talk about your business. I love the business name. Can you tell us what Freedom Couple Counseling is? Why, how, and when did you start this?
Freedom Couple Counseling is my business name. I relaunched during our Melbourne lockdown. That would have been in 2020. For the readers to know, I am a couples therapist and I've been doing that for a few years now. When I graduated with my Master's in couples counseling, I started up my business, had a few clients, and I had gone with my name.
I googled around and it seemed like everyone seemed to be saying that their business name was based on their name. From a marketing perspective, for me, it was probably not the most useful thing. As much as my family knows me and my friends know me, no one else outside of that would know who I am.
During the lockdown, I had my second child and I was keen to get back into it. I was keen to relaunch and turn my business into something that represents what I wanted for the business so I changed the name to Freedom Couple Counseling. For me, that is having a therapy space for my clients where they can come, be real, and bring whatever it is that they have going on.
Whether that's coming from a place of brokenness or coming from a place where you need to re-tweak something, whether you’re a couple or whether you’re an individual, there’s a space where you can bring your stuff. We can unpack your stuff and we can process your stuff. You can come and get some form of healing and have a sense of freedom, whatever that looks like for you individually. That's the heart of my name. I hope that answers the question.
It does. Congratulations on having a second child anytime but especially during a pandemic. How's that all going?
How much time do you have in your podcast? It's good but it's hard. It's a huge transition. If you are a business person or a parent working part-time or full-time, it has been a massive transition navigating a lot of different spaces for myself and my family. It's been full-on.
I hear you. I had my second child before the pandemic. I thought 2020 is going to be such a good year. It was not. Something important for people to take from what you've said is about you don't have to stick with a name because everyone else is doing it or that's the name you started with. When you changed it, were you worried about losing SEO if you changed the domain name or your emails or anything like that?
It was probably a rebranding and a completely different business if that makes sense. When I initially went in, I don't think I knew what I was doing. I had time to think about it. This second time around, I wanted to do it well. I had come from a completely different framework and wanted to represent myself and my brand differently, that's where that came from. I’m wanting to put myself out there as well. That was something different for me too.
I love the explanation of the name and the concept of freedom. People are coming with different ideas of what they need themselves. You have this Master's and you've worked through years as a couples therapist. You're like a next-level agony aunt for your friends and family because everyone asked you to analyze their relationships. Do you feel like you can or do you steer clear?
I don’t think I get that as much. Occasionally, people will be talking about their relationships and then they try and ask me stuff from the perspective of being a therapist. This is friends, by the way. For the most part, it's definitely from the perspective of other people. It’s like, “What do you think?” Maybe getting a little bit messy and trying to get the tea on not themselves but other people and what I think about that. I'll tell you what I say to my family. My family tries to focus on me regularly and I will always be like, “It is the weekend. You are not paying me for this. I am unavailable for various types of things.” I reckon I get it from my family more than anyone.
That is funny. My sister, we are close. She's a GP. She’s been incredibly helpful but sometimes she'll be like, “I don't know, Fiona. Why don’t you call your GP?” I’m like, “You’re my GP.” She's like, “You should go and see your GP and talk about that.”
That's good boundaries. Speaking of boundaries, boundaries are something that comes up hugely in relationships. Relationships are crucial to running a business whether it's your romantic relationship, your business partner, or the people that you work with. In my own life, my husband has been a huge rock for me. I often refer to him as my business coach. Yes, I'm talking to people all day long but I'm working alone. I have a remote staff and I've chosen that lifestyle.
My husband has all the stuff that's going on, the good and bad, like, “I've got this business idea. What do you think of this?” With everyone I work with, work is a common theme that comes up within their relationships. Firstly, do you agree that work is a big part of a relationship between a couple? I'm talking about romantic couples. What do you think are some tips? Do you have a tip for maintaining a level of openness without it turning into venting to your partner?
Work/business is a massive thing for couples. That's why I was excited about your invitation because it is huge for many people. It looks different, I do have to say that. Every couple might have a different setup. Also, if it's a business or if it's a career that you're passionate about, it makes so much sense that it's such a big part of you. In terms of energy, time, and the space that goes into finances, the thought processes behind it.
For some people anyways, you could almost equate it to being another child in terms of the depth of how important it is. Also, the dreams, the goals, and all that stuff associated with the business. It makes sense that in our relationship, we tend to talk about the things that are most important to us or the things that are stressing us out. It is common.
I always say this to my couples, things aren't a problem until they're a problem. For example, if you're in a relationship and, with yourself, you're like, “I can bring this stuff to my partner. It's working well. We've got our own little thing going. It works for me. It works for him. It works for us.” That's fine. I probably see people who might get stuck in certain spaces. Sometimes when it comes to business or work, a lot of couples, including myself, can get quite stuck in that space.
That can be probably for a different number of reasons. The first is we have different expectations in terms of what we want from our partners when it comes to supporting when it comes to being able to vent, and when it comes to being able to have their input on certain types of things. That might be big and important to me because I'm also a solo business person. I don't have a business partner. The people that I see the most in my business or speak to our potential clients or my clients. They’re the majority of who I chat with.
You're not going to turn around and be like, “Let me tell you my problems.”
At the end of the session, it’s being like, “While I have you here…” I don't know if you can relate to this but it's quite an isolating job in that way. The thing that comes up for couples is the differences in expectations. That can change over time. Maybe, at some point in time, what you have going now works but maybe in the future or maybe years ago, it doesn't necessarily gel so much. It is around boundaries.
When I speak about expectations, as people that are invested in something that we're passionate about and enjoy a solo practitioner type of thing, you might have an unspoken expectation that your partner will be supportive in certain ways. Your partner might have completely different ideas as to what their expectation of what it would look like. We might be speaking about ideas but from other couples, it might look different. That might be based on roles.
With my business, I'm not available between 9:00 and 7:00. That means something different for my partner in terms of if we have children or we if have their children. Socially, it’s what that might look like. Sometimes it's the differences that can get couples in trouble and the unspoken conversations about what we expect and what that looks like. Also, when we talk about some of these things, it can get us in trouble too. Does that make sense?
It all makes sense. I loved when you said things aren’t a problem until they're a problem. The difference in expectation is clear in all relationships. It comes to your spouse or your partner. When we hire somebody, we're like, “Shouldn't they get that that's the obvious next step?” We do that all the time. I'm often thinking of that mantra, “Expectations are resentments in waiting.” Expectations, for me, have been a huge thing that I've had to work on my whole life.
It's also this thing of we might sign up for something. If you're in a business, you might have signed up. In your mind, you never completely know because we know that cause changes throughout your business life or changes throughout your career. Hopefully, you might do a bit of planning at the start. You might come up with your business plan. You might be looking at things to do with finances, supplying stuff, and production. You're looking at all these things that you think you need to sustain or start that business off.
Sometimes we forget to look at the impact of that on our partners that we would be doing life with. They might not be on the same page as we are when we're doing these things. They might be not always but sometimes caught off guard. They signed up for this driven passion. We tend to be attracted to that. Some people are attracted to that kind of thing in a partner. They might be like, “Awesome. You’re starting your own business.” “I thought I knew what I signed up for but I didn't sign up for what was going to come with it. I didn't sign up for someone who wasn't going to be available for me all the time.”
Even the type of business.
The type of business is going to be different. Even signing up with someone who's exhausted when they get home. That's me. On the days that I'm working, when I get home, I have nothing. I'm like, “Put on a reality TV show.”
That is exactly me. I usually finish work before m,y husband and I go get the kids and stuff. Sometimes he'll want to chat and I'm like, “I don't want to talk to anyone. I've had seven hours of talking to people today.” I just want to watch Real Housewives or whatever other trash that I'm watching and zone out.
We've gotten better but I'll say to him, “I need twenty minutes with no one talking to me and no one asking anything of me.” I love when you were honest and vulnerable. I'm not a therapist but sometimes I feel like I'm a therapist. You have to be the one with the answers. You have to be the one holding space for people. I don't know if you felt this as well but through the pandemic, it was hard.
I remember talking to my sister, the GP, and saying, “How do you not attach to everyone's problems?” Being a GP all day long, you're telling people they've got cancer or you’re telling other things. She said something like Vespa windscreen, “I can see it but I don't need to feel. I don't need to take on every person's energy.” It’s not to say she doesn't. She does sometimes. It can be quite isolating, that relationship. Whatever job you have, if you're giving advice or you're mentoring people, it can be hard on you as well.
You have your stuff as well at home. That doesn't stop because of what your job is.
We've talked about people where one partner is not in the business. I also work with people who are partners, whether they're a couple or whether they're being together forever, married, or whatever. They're in business together. I'm wondering, how would you suggest people separate work and life when they are fully in the business together and potentially there with each other 24/7? I had quite a few clients during the pandemic who did well because they were in the homeware space and brought on their partners. It can be a conversation that comes up a bit of like, “now we're together 24/7. Do we talk about work all the time?”
They’re called couple-preneurs. There is so much strength to those couples though because they have stuff. We have to acknowledge that they probably deal with things that not all couples are dealing with either. It's layered in terms of we are romantically connected and then we also run a business together. You are navigating different usual couple stuff but there's an added layer of things that you have to navigate that not all couples do.
Maybe some of your readers are not romantic couples but maybe you're related. This stuff could apply to them. These couples, whenever they come in, I'm always amazed by them in some ways because they have quite a few similarities. They’re like a power couple, that's usually how I see them. They’re both passionate and driven. They usually have a shared heart for business and entrepreneurship. They have a lot of strong commonalities in that space.
It is hard and I have seen it with some of my clients who are in this predicament. It is hard to separate the two. Naturally, it can happen easily. The lines get blurred easily. If I use the example of if you were a couple but you both had another job, the way that you'd communicate with each other would be quite different. Yes, you'd spend a lot of time together. There’s a line between home and business life. For these couples, a lot of their worlds merge a lot. There's a lot of tension in that as well.
Maybe who you are as a co-founding business partner if you have business partners or one of you is a founder and one of you works in the business, we can sometimes lose that sense of professionalism in a way. We might talk to our partner in anyhow like we would when we're at home. We might bring up things all the time. We might be holding issues or things that have come up either in the business or maybe in our personal lives, whatever it is that merged into the personal time. It's a whole mismatch of stuff going on.
The things that we would talk about with these couples sound obvious and it probably sounds more simple than what it is but it's not that simple in terms of having clear boundaries. You have to remember that you are partners or you're working together in this space but you're also a couple. How do we define that line between you? When I'm talking about boundaries, those are boundaries around how you communicate, for example. How do you communicate with your business partner? Is it respectful? What are the rules? What are the guidelines? What are the ethics around how we communicate when we're at work?
Maybe even defining your working hours, what are those working hours? Maybe coming up with boundaries, “After a certain time, we’re not going to talk about work.” Maybe some for people reading, that will be hard to do. In business, sometimes it's hard to cut off. In the same way, we're probably good at pouring into our business because that is what's required to have a successful business. We also need to respect our relationship and pour into that too and our family as well.
If you have kids, family, friendships, or whatever, it's one thing being good at business but it's also the other stuff for most of us that keep\ us whole and grounded. Sometimes I know that it can be easy to be good in one area but other areas can suffer. For couples, that can be the case, especially if they're in business together.
When I was talking about boundaries around time, sometimes it's also useful if you have a ritual. This could be applied even if you're the only business person in your relationship. Maybe you could have a ritual that you do that ends the day. Maybe you drive home together. Maybe when you get home, you give each other a kiss and that kiss is like, “We're home. We’re a couple now. We're going to have our night in the evening. From 10:00 AM tomorrow, we are in business. We’re the partners in the business. We resume that from 10:00 AM.”
Because we want to honor our time and honor our space as a family, we have rules around what that's going to look like. We have rules around spending time with our children. We're going to honor that even though it's hard. For most people, you can hold off. As in any kind of business, there’s always an emergency. There's always something at some point, which is blowing up that you need to attend. You can contact that together in terms of, “When that happens, how do we manage that?”
There are so many tips and ideas. I love the idea of the end-of-day ritual. I did a whole podcast episode on this. When you were talking about you wanting to be good at business but you also want to be good at life, it was Dolly Parton who said, “Don't get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.”
It's true.
Also, one of the first guests I had on here was Josh Rubin who runs Cool Hunting in the US. He's married to his business partner, Evan Orensten. He said that his mom told them, “At least over dinner, don’t talk about work over dinner.” That one hour is your safe space to not talk about anything to do with work.
Yes, the business is important but there are also other elements of the person. This can be applied to not just couples that are in business together even if one of you is. It can be a little bit of a moot. It's not sexy, firstly. In some businesses, they work from home. You can even have a contract around. Maybe we aren't talking about it in our bedroom, for example. Lastly, what I was going to say is if you are completely enmeshed, as in, we do everything, we do business together, we got kids, and we got a family, maybe it's an opportunity.
If you're at the point where you're like, “It’s feeling a little bit too much. We're feeling a little bit overwhelmed. I'm over it.” Maybe it's also healthy to start finding your own thing outside of what you do together. Maybe that's finding a hobby or finding a sport or a craft or something else that you can do that’s just for you and them having their theme too.
The forever issue with couples is always closeness and distance. Sometimes, for enmeshed couples, having a space of having your own thing is important maybe to keep the fire burning for the two of you. It’s you being able to say, “I tried this new thing.” It’s bringing something different into the element. I don't know if that makes sense.
It makes sense. I do remember, in high school, we had to study a poet. One of my friends, Danielle, chose Kahlil Gibran. I remember that was in year 9 but I've heard at so many people's weddings. It's a poem saying, “We can be two columns holding up a house but we’re separate columns.” It's important, I reckon. Often, we hear all this romantic stuff like Two become one and all of these romantic songs about I found my other half. You're a whole person without that person. That’s important.
Everything you've said can also work or be laid over other relationships. With customers, suppliers, the manufacturers we’ve got, staff that is maybe working remotely, or clients, are there any tips to get the best out of any relationship? That's a broad question but are there any tips that you think, “This is an important one.”
I don't know if people find this helpful but I try to emphasize on try and do this. Because I'm a therapist, we tend to often stay in the what's-not-working zone. We tend to go there probably a bit more. Maybe those initial conversations or those initial verbal contracts that we have with people are important. We tend to maybe focus on trying to get the stuff done and thinking of what we need to get done with suppliers, manufacturers, or whatever.
Maybe you don't talk so much about what we do when things might not be working well if that makes sense. This is probably more in your space, Fiona, in terms of having legal contracts to protect yourself and all that stuff. I like to have conversations with people about, “How do I know when things aren't working well for you? What would you do with that?” I do have this moment, “Would you call them?” I can tell you that most people are like, “I'll tell you.” Everyone always thinks that that's what they will do but most people probably don't like conflict. It’s better to contract with people beforehand about, “If this is not going well, what are we going to do at that moment?”
That is important. People in job interviews, they'll say, “What's one of the things that could be improved?” People are like, “I'm a perfectionist.” Everyone says that because it's like, “I'm good. That's my biggest fault. I want everything to be perfect.” Many people will avoid confrontation and avoid any scary conversation. It's such a valuable point that you brought up. There are going to be lots of business owners reading this thinking, “In my next one-on-one with my staff, I'm going to ask this question.”
You can ask them, “How are we going to navigate this?” My style is I'm quite direct. That doesn’t necessarily work for everyone. I'm like, “What do you like?”
That is good. I'm thinking of people I used to manage and wishing that we had these conversations. Unlike you, I can be direct. I would rather rip the band-aid off and get it over with and other people aren't like that.
The power of it is if and when something does come up, you've already spoken about it. They have permitted you. You have permitted them. We've verbally contracted it. We're going to stick to that as opposed to, “Now we're in trouble. Things aren't going well. What are we going to do?” It’s this awkward space. It's not always going to end in the way that we want. We can't control everyone around us. It is important, in terms of any relationship, to set those rules. It's so much easier for you.
You're also telling people about how you work. You're telling people what your expectations are of you and your business and your processes as well. You're permitting them to when things aren't going well to bring that up. I'm more inclined to be like, “Can we meet again in three months?” People would be like, “How's everything going?” You’d be like, “It's good.” I might ask that but I might often also ask more questions. I might be like, “If you could change something in terms of what we've done in the last three months, what would you change?” I might maybe get more from that question than, “How's everything going?”
It's open and more specific at the same time if that makes sense. It gives them a framework to come back to you. I'm asking many questions about this. We were in touch at the start of the pandemic because I was like, “I have to get you to come into a good business group.” It's awesome, what you're doing and all of that. A lot of couples have started navigating new waters because of the pandemic and because we were together a lot more even if you don't work together.
One thing that I've heard a lot is that people in business have felt, on one level, more respected because they're like, “They see what I have to do all the time. I'm juggling business. Maybe I'm juggling the kids.” That partner has been there watching it all and they're like, “Yay.” On the flip side, some people have been like, “You see what I do and you still think that I've got all this time in the day or that I'm going out and meeting friends or going shopping or whatever it is.”
What were the biggest concerns that they had from being together so much during the pandemic? Is there any advice for anyone who maybe was working from home and now their partner is home full-time because workplaces have changed and they're still trying to navigate that new normal of being together quite often?
I have probably a big chunk of people. I probably got more people that were struggling with navigating, a lot of couples, which made sense. Honestly, if we’ll normalize it, surviving a pandemic is a theme. What that looked like for a lot of us was so different from anything we've ever had to navigate before. The things that probably would have come up for a lot of couples, you touched on it before in terms of working from home.
Working from home, what a struggle that was. I'm speaking for myself here. I have little people at home. I’m working from home with little people. A lot of organizations or businesses were trying to navigate how to work from home if they could do that. Also, how are we going to stay afloat even if we can't operate? All of that stuff. There was a lot of stress on a lot of couples. We forget home learning.
No childcare.
Also, having to still work, and a lot of the roles. Who's doing what? That intensified. For the couple who are already struggling with, “I'm doing this. I'm picking the kids up and dropping them off. I'm feeling like we're not equal in terms of roles.” That probably intensified during the pandemic because it was almost like, “Your job is more important than mine so now I have to do all that stuff. I have more flexibility in my job than you do.”
We probably discovered more about each other than we ever have as well. That wasn't always positive. We might have discovered that maybe our partners drank more than we thought they did. They probably drank more than they probably did anyways because they were overwhelmed and stressed. Also, a lot of mental health issues would have come about from that. It’s being equivalent to the worst versions of ourselves. It was like a pressure cooker for a lot of households with no outlet, no support, catching up with friends, and not being able to drop the kids. It was a lot for many people.
For a lot of couples, recovering isn't the right word but they're still trying to navigate that time and still trying to process that time. I wouldn't call it trauma but when you're holding on or when you're surviving, there isn't much time for being able to reflect and process that. Maybe now is that time and also people who are like, “My relationship was okay,” and then they were stuck in a house together. A lot of people broke up.
I've had three clients go through a divorce during the pandemic because it brought to light things that weren't working.
My advice is to normalize the fact that you would have had to have navigated something completely different for your family, yourself, or as a couple. For a lot of people, their mental health took a toll as well. That was hard for people in terms of trying to survive themselves and then having a partner that's going through a hard time with their mental health.
This is me biased because I'm a therapist but sometimes we need to know with all of our problems, “Have I tried to do something myself?” Most people might say, “Yes. I have.” “Do I need help with this or do I think that I can navigate it on my own?” That's probably an addition to everything that we've spoken about. We're often not good at knowing when we need to get help. We've tried everything we can and it has not worked. We've spoken to our friends and our family or sometimes we’ve spoken to our partners. At some point, we need to be like, “Maybe I need more help.” That is looking for a professional to support us through that. It’s an important step for a lot of people I reckon.
That's an important thing to say. We have readers from all over the world, which is wonderful. I have quite a few clients in America. I do feel like the idea of seeing a therapist in America is much more accepted than here. Here, when people talk about couples therapy, sometimes it's almost like, “You're at the divorce point.” It's like, “We're not.” It's a preventative measure from that.
You've helped lots of people in their relationships but who has helped you with building your business? Do you have any mantras? Have you got books? Have you got a business friend? Who would you credit has helped you the most, books, documentaries, or anything that has helped you build this business over the last couple of years?
I have mantras. I've thought of this mantra. It's not unique to me but I must have heard it and thought of it and I'm like, “Yes.” For me, my audience is the one. In everything that I do, in terms of my business and even on the days where I'm like, “Lord, help me. I want to stay at home. I have nothing for anyone.” I sometimes think of the one. You just don't know. If you focus on the need of the one, for me and where I'm at, that is my motivation.
If I'm doing a podcast like this or if I'm writing a piece for the newspaper or whatever, I'm thinking of either the one couple or the one individual that might resonate with what I have to say or what I can bring in therapy or something like that. That's something that I focus on. I've seen something a few years ago. Your course touches on this, Fiona. In terms of the needs of people, the need and the why we're doing it have shifted. When I relaunched, that shifted what I was doing and what my focus was. It's all well and good until I’ve done my Master’s whatever the need of couples in Melbourne. That's something that's helped me focus or hone into what I was doing.
More than that, it’s networking. For therapists, we have to have supervision, that's part of something we need to do for accreditation. The role of our supervisors is to keep us relevant to go through our work. That's probably something that helps me. I have a group supervision, it's a group of couples therapists. They also helped me.
I'm sure a lot of people could relate to this, I'm also quite different and unique from a lot of couples therapists. If I think of where I started with my course or when I'm networking, I'm pretty different from a lot of couples therapists that I've known as well. That's more of my superpower,
more than anything. I feel like you can always learn from different people. You can get inspiration from different people. I don't have that much time. I don't probably listen to as many business-type podcasts or books. I probably spent most of my time in therapy-type podcasts or books in my area more than anything.
I would love to know, do you watch Couples Therapy?
I've heard about it. I never watched it. I thought you'd be right into it. I watched the US one. I stopped watching it. There's an Australian one as well. For anyone who doesn't know what we're talking about, it's real couples going through therapy and it's all on TV. You get to see these couples. In one way, it was good. When my husband and I watched the first one, I was like, “Those people have real problems.” I would love to know what are you most proud of from your journey in business.
That's a big one. There have been so many things. From the time when I relaunched, it’s survived. I don't know if that's not a good word but it is a word for me. Surviving the pandemic and surviving all of the change. Also, surviving the juggle. Let's be honest, that hustle is real. It's not easy for anyone when you're pursuing something that you love and that you're passionate about.
There are things that people see. There might be things that you put out on social media. There might be things that you might put out in your marketing. There might even be conversations, “How's your business going?” we all have a thing that we might say back to that. It's the stuff that happens in the dark, the stuff that happens after hours, and the stuff that your partner or your family sees. It’s the personal and private struggles that you have.
It’s the times when you don't want to keep going but yet, you do. Those are the times that I feel proud about. Also, stepping into zones that I wouldn't normally do. The spaces that I feel terrified about doing, I've been able to do or say yes to. Some of them have worked out in my favor or doors have opened that I never would have thought would. It’s being brave. I’m like, “That's cool that I did that.”
Such a good answer. I'm sure many people reading are nodding and going, “Yes.” You can step out of your comfort zone and it's such a great place to be when you realize you can do things that you maybe told yourself you couldn't. If people are reading this and they're thinking, “I would like to connect with Jill.” Where is the best place? Also, what's coming up for you? Is anything coming up for you?
For anyone reading this, if you want to connect with me, my business name is Freedom Couple Counseling. You can Google me. I am on Instagram. You can go onto my social media. You can email me. You can send me a message on Gram as well. That's where most people probably connect with me. In terms of things going, I have a few opportunities in terms of media. I do a piece a month or a regular piece. We’re at the ABC.
Congrats.
Thank you. That's all to do with couples and, mainly, things that I'm seeing with couples. I'm doing a bit more stuff in the media. That's probably where I'm at at the moment.
I'm thrilled that you said yes to coming on here. Thank you for all your advice. I was taking notes. Lots of people will be like, “Okay.” Their partners are going to be thankful that they read this. Thank you so much for coming on.
Thanks for the opportunity. That was fun. Thank you, Fiona.
Bye.
Bye. Thanks.
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Who read that and is thinking, “I am going to change things up in my relationships.” Whether they are romantic relationships, whether they are with your family members, whether it's with people you work with, suppliers, remote workers, or if you're lucky enough to have staff in-house, what is your relationship like with them? How might it change and hopefully improve following that conversation that I had with Jill Dzadey?
I would love to know what you most took away from that. Of course, there are so many things that came up for me. I wrote down about five notes throughout that, things that Jill said that resonated with me. I wanted to go through two. I'm looking at the five and I'm like, “I want to go through all of them.” I always keep it to two on this interview episode.
The first thing that I love that she pointed out was things aren't a problem until they're a problem. It sounds simple but it's profound. Often, with relationships, with business, with anything, we can compare ourselves to other people. I love that she said that. She said, “Things aren't a problem until they're a problem.” If it works for you and if it works for you and your relationship, whichever kind of relationship that is, it doesn't have to change because somebody out there says that you should do it this way or that way.
Of course, I'm not excusing things like intolerable behavior, domestic violence, or anything else like that. For other things, perhaps we think that people do X, Y, and Zed in their relationship between a general manager and the person who owns the business. That doesn't have to happen because of that stock standard out there in the business world. If you have a relationship and it's working well and you've figured out a way to communicate with each other, I love that Jill said, “It's not a problem until it becomes a problem.”
That's a great place to start with relationships and to understand and acknowledge that every single relationship you have with somebody is going to be different. I have numerous friends that I love, all of them. I have a lot of friends in different parts of my life. I have friends that I went to high school with a million years ago. One of my best friends, Paul, we met because we were both starting our first jobs together. He was the first person I ever employed. He's been a lifelong friend forever.
I have another great friend who's on the other side of the world and we met through a mastermind. I have friends and different relationships with each of them. Because I might have had friends for the same amount of time, it doesn't mean that friendship is going to be the same as another friend that I have with somebody of an equal amount of time if that makes sense. I love that idea, things aren't a problem until they're a problem.
I also loved her concept of verbal contracts with people and saying, “This is what I need.” Particularly, when people are starting in your business or in any relationship that you have and sitting down and thinking about, “If things go wrong, how are you most likely to react? How might I help you through that situation?” Likewise, turning the tables on yourself as the manager, the company founder, or whatever it is and saying, “This is how I tend to react when things don't go well. What I will need from you is X, Y, and Zed.”
I love the idea of sitting down and having a verbal contract with somebody. Also, when you're starting a business or maybe you're scaling your business and you have a significant other sitting down with them and saying, “This is what I expect,” or, “These are the expectations. What do you need? What are your expectations?” I am forever talking about expectations on this podcast. Jill brought it up beautifully that, quite often, the issue becomes when there's a difference in expectation. That applies to any relationship whether it's romantic, whether it's with your staff, whether it's both. Who knows? I love that.
I am going to mention another one because it goes with both of the things that I said, which is this idea of closeness and distance and being clear on how are we showing our closeness. Also, what distances do we need? That is another big one for business owners. Often, they will have people come on board and there's this idea of they should just know stuff, which goes to the expectations. Also, there's this idea of micromanaging and having to be involved in every single decision. Even when you hire people and you want them to work autonomously but then you're getting involved in everything.
I interviewed Michael Bascetta who is an incredible business owner. I said, “How have you run three different restaurants? You're opening up businesses all the time plus you run Worksmith and all these other things.” He said, “I let people do their job. I don't need to be involved in every single meeting and every single decision. That's why I've hired people so that I can trust them to go and do their stuff.” I love that concept of closeness and distance. It sits well with the verbal contracts of, how you like to be managed. How do you like to work? What do I expect you to run past me? What do I expect that you don't bother me with that I don't need to know about? When I'm often working with clients, especially if they have a team, we'll look at the framework of KYRO or RACI. It’s a framework for managing teams. It's like a matrix and you have, who's responsible, who's accountable, who is consulted, who's informed, and who’s omitted.
Sometimes we're narrowing down, in a marketing team, particularly how much does the person in charge of the business have to be involved? Maybe they're just informed. Maybe they're consulted. Who is ultimately accountable for doing this work? Who is responsible for this work? In terms of omitted, who doesn't need to know about it? Don't bother them with it. That comes back to that closeness and distance idea of what we need to be close to and where we need to be clear and set our boundaries around the distances that we need as well.
There are many things that came from that beautiful conversation with Jill. If you are reading and you think, “I'd love to get in touch with her.” Maybe you need some couples counseling. We talked about that being a preventative thing. It's not always, “Let's wait until things are bad in order to go in there.” Jill is down-to-earth and approachable. for if you are looking for relationship help.
If you do want to get in touch with Jill, you can find her on Instagram, @FreedomCoupleCounseling. If you're interested in checking out her services and everything else that she has available, you can find that over at FreedomCoupleCounseling.com. It’s my absolute pleasure to talk to Jill Dzadey about all things relationships. If you found this useful, I would love it so much if you might leave a review. It helps other small business owners who may well need some relationship advice find us. You can do that on Apple, Spotify, or wherever. If you do choose to share this on social media, please tag us so that we don't miss it. You can do that at @MyDailyBusinessCoach. Jill’s Instagram is @FreedomCoupleCounseling.
As I mentioned at the start of this episode, if you or someone you know is in a relationship that is a little toxic or potentially even veering into family and domestic violence, please know that there is help available. You can call one 1800-Respect or you can go to 1800Respect.org.au plus other places like Safe Steps, Your Toolkit, and Our Watch. Thank you so much for reading. I'll see you next episode.
