Ellen Dorian explores how business owners can strengthen their relationships by treating their partnership as the foundation that holds everything else together. Drawing from a Trevor Noah podcast quote about spending time with his father, she examines the cost of making unilateral business decisions without partner input. The episode provides a framework for integrating business and relationship priorities through structured communication, tiered decision-making, and weekly alignment meetings.
Part 1: The Cost of Exclusion
- Ellen shares a quote from Roy Wood Jr. about being along for the ride rather than truly included in his father's life.
- Business owners often make rapid decisions without consulting partners who will be affected by the outcomes.
- Top-down thinking creates resistance and undermines support, even when partners don't openly object.
- Shared visions can drift apart over time, leaving couples working toward completely different outcomes.
- The question "Are you running your business or is your business running you?" reveals a common trap.
Part 2: The Juggling and Herding Problem
- Most business owners have three competing priorities: work, family, and personal fulfillment.
- Juggling means keeping balls in the air, but one is always falling—you can only hold two at a time.
- Herding is attempting to control everything at once, like stuffing three cats in a bag.
- Both approaches fail because they rely on one person being solely responsible for everything.
- Business decisions directly impact partners whether they've agreed to them or not.
Part 3: The Airplane Framework
- Ellen introduces a new model: your relationship is the airplane, with two seats in the cockpit.
- Everything else—business, kids, extended family, hobbies—belongs in the cabin as passengers.
- Kids and business should not fly the plane or always come first.
- Strong partnerships create the framework where everything else thrives.
- Partners become copilots without becoming business partners.
Part 4: Three Best Practices for Partnership Alignment
#1 Weekly Business Review Meeting
- Hold a short weekly meeting focused on decisions that touch shared life.
- Cover four topics: what happened since last meeting, what's coming up, what needs joint decision, and what matters most this week.
- Make it enjoyable with coffee, wine, or pancakes—call it whatever makes it fun.
- Prevents the "I never heard that" or "you didn't tell me" conflicts.
#2 Tiered Decision-Making Categories
- Green zone: everyday decisions that don't impact shared life, just keep partner informed.
- Yellow zone: give heads up and chance to weigh in, minimize surprises, maximize respect.
- Red zone: decisions requiring full discussion before moving forward.
#3 Red Zone Topics
- Money: any shared resource at risk, new debt, contracts, personal guarantees, compensation changes.
- Time: anything significantly changing availability, focus, or energy—major projects, expansion, increased travel.
- People: hiring or firing key team members, bringing on investors, forming partnerships.
- These decisions affect stress levels, time, and how you show up in the relationship.
Key Takeaways:- Your relationship should be the context in which your business, family, and fulfillment exist, not just another competing priority.
- The entrepreneur divorce rate sits above 60% because not everyone commits to this level of discipline and openness.
- Your partner needs to be an important voice in your business without necessarily working in it.
- Trying to control everything by yourself guarantees something will crash, taking everything else down with it.
- Real work-life integration requires...
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Aug 28 20258 min
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