AMY PORTERFIELD: Hey there, welcome to another episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast. I’m your host, Amy Porterfield, and today we have an extra special guest.
I always tell you we have a special guest. They are all special to me. But this one is extra, extra special because it is my husband, Hobie Porterfield.
If you listen to my podcast, you’ve heard me refer to him as my hunky husband. But he’s also been my cheerleader, my sounding board, my confidant, my escape throughout all of this craziness of building an online business for over six years now.
He was there from the get go. I met and married Hobie while I was still working at Tony Robbins. He was a general contractor at the time and right when I left my corporate job he decided he wanted to become a firefighter.
In California you do not try to become a firefighter at 36 or 37 years old but that’s what he wanted to do. At the time when I was growing my online business Hobie was trying to become a San Diego firefighter.
It was kind of crazy, to say the least. We really had some tough times from the get go.
I want to talk to you about what that looked like and what it looks like today because, in my world, business is personal and personal is business. It all really collides. It physically collides because my office is in my home.
It also collides in theory because I’m always thinking about business but I’m always thinking about the personal stuff as well. It kind of just gets all mixed up in my head a lot of the time.
It has been incredibly valuable to have a spouse, a partner in my life, that has come on this journey with me. He hasn’t just been looking at all of this from the sidelines. He’s been actively involved.
But he hasn’t been making decisions about funnels and ads and email subscribers and all that. We will talk about that, but I just wanted to share with you the fact that I believe, as entrepreneurs, we have to protect and nurture our most important relationships.
Let’s be honest, we all get a little crazy at times as we grow our business. It’s not always smooth sailing, especially in the early years.
If your partner looks at what you’re doing as a hobby or as a side gig or something that’s not really going to affect them then, quite honestly, it’s going to be harder for you to reach the success you’re looking for.
I want to encourage you to bring them into your world. Hobie and I are going to talk about how we’ve done that throughout the last few years.
To give you just a little taste, we’re going to talk about the trials and tribulations of being married to someone growing a business, how a partner can be sensitive to the needs to the entrepreneur, and how you (the entrepreneur) can be sensitive to the needs of your partner. It’s so very important.
I’ve been very guilty of being incredibly selfish along this journey so I’m going to kind of dish on some of my mistakes along the way.
We’re also going to talk about how Hobie and I make it work everyday. It ain’t always pretty. But I know at the end of the day there’s a deep, deep love there; and, respect and appreciation. We’re going to talk about how we got there.
Believe me, it has not always been easy. So please know that my goal of this episode is to help you approach your most cherished relationships in a way that will help you thrive as an entrepreneur but feel totally loved and supported every step of the way.
If you’re thinking this episode’s not about funnels or ads or email marketing so you are going to skip this one, hold your horses there. I can promise you your intimate relationships are going to either help or deter your success along the way. There’s no doubt in my mind.
If you take this episode seriously you will set yourself up for even bigger success. I just know it in my gut. So let’s dive in and welcome my better half.
Amy: Hobie Porterfield, thanks for coming on my podcast.
Hobie: Thank you, Amy Porterfield.
Amy: This feels so official, doesn’t it?
Hobie: It does. I don’t really know how to conduct myself.
Amy: I know, I’m a little nervous. Do you feel the jitters?
Hobie: Yeah, I’m definitely nervous.
Amy: Okay, I promise I’ll be easy on you. I just want to let everyone know how this is all going down. We actually started to record in my podcasting nook in my home office. We were sharing one mic and we were literally practically sitting on top of one each other so we could be close to the mic and would you say that was a tad bit awkward, Hobie?
Hobie: It made it completely impossible to be able to focus on any questions other than that you were practically sitting in my lap.
Amy: So that is a great opportunity. But not for a podcast.
Hobie: Yeah, it wasn’t working.
Amy: It wasn’t working for us and Hobie was fidgeting beyond belief, driving me nuts. So this wasn’t working so we had to change it around. Now Hobie is in the other room on Skype and I’m at my podcasting equipment. I think we can breathe a little easier. This is going to go down really nicely now. Would you agree?
Hobie: It’s way easier to be professional when you’re not invading my personal space.
Amy: Let’s just get right into it. I want to start out with asking you some of the good stuff. We’re going to get into the nitty gritty of what’s really tough, where we’ve had obstacles, and the whole goal is to offer some insight to those that are growing their business and want to protect their most sacred relationships.
I want to start out with the good stuff. This question is a little self serving because I want to know how you would answer it. But what do you think is one of the best things about being married to an entrepreneur?
Hobie: The best thing for me, with you, is watching you grow. From the very beginning you didn’t really have a lot of confidence. You were doubting yourself a lot. You were comparing yourself to other people. I’ve gotten to watch you over the past couple of years (especially) just become confident and knowing that you are good at what you’re doing.
To me, being able to see that has been beyond rewarding. I think it’s awesome when you’re watching somebody that you care as much about as I do with you, to see them literally kick butt. It’s pretty awesome.
Amy: I’m just guessing because I know your personality well, but I bet it was tough for you in the early years right when I left Tony Robbins and started my own thing, to see me doubt myself every single day and see me struggle.
There were a lot of tears. There were a lot of conversations. Do you remember the conversations where I said, “Hobie, I think I’m going to have to go back to a full-time job. This is never going to work. I’m going to have to go back to corporate.” Do you remember all of those days?
Hobie: I do. And I remember non stop the one thing we kept talking about. I wish I could claim responsibility for coming up with it but somebody else said it and I just stole it from them, but, what’s the worst that could happen? You have to go back to a regular job?
Amy: But as an entrepreneur that does feel like the end of the world sometimes.
Hobie: Yeah. I definitely saw that stress on you so it’s definitely hard. I remember those in the beginning, watching how hard it was for you. That made it hard for me because I just wanted to jump in and help and there wasn’t really a lot I could do other than be supportive.
Amy: I think that was huge. You would tell me every single day, “You’ve got this. You’re not going back to a JOB. You can do this. I’m behind you.”
I think sometimes that’s all I needed to hear. Let’s be honest, you didn’t necessarily know about the industry I was in and even to this day when I talk about Facebook ads and funnels and conversions and email lists and subscribers and all that you kind of get it a little bit more now but that’s not your favorite conversation. Right?
Hobie: No. I get it a little bit more but I didn’t get it at all when this started. Every time we met somebody that had a reputation or was significant in your industry I didn’t understand it at all. I had never seen them before and never heard of them before. It was kind of educational, to say the least.
Amy: Don’t let me forget to ask you a question about that a little later on. I want to talk to you about me being in the work setting and you being by my side and some of the weirdness we’ve dealt with because of that.
I want to honestly talk about that and what we do about it now. But before we get there, what do you think your role has been? Let’s especially focus on my early years. I am an entrepreneur and have built my business and our relationship is so much easier now that it’s established than it was back then.
I really want to talk to the entrepreneurs today that are just getting things started and feel they have some awkwardness or uncomfortable situations and unknowns in their relationships because of the stress of being an entrepreneur.
We can be crazy as we grow our business. Hobie’s seen me be crazy many times. So what do you think your role has been, especially in those early years as my husband when I was growing this business?
Hobie: I think biggest, for sure, is motivator. My job was to try and stop you from doubting yourself, just to tell you you could do it. And I believed that. I wasn’t trying to make something up or give you some kind of false hope. But I definitely think the more I motivated you the more it helped you be confident and go another step further and motivator is definitely it.
I think secondary to that would definitely be listener because that was the one that, to me, is the hardest part if you’re the other person. You’re the entrepreneur and I’m your spouse. The hard part for me, and I know there’s a lot of people this way, I want to fix things.
I especially want to fix things for you. I realized about half a year into your first year that you didn’t need me to fix things. You needed me to let you talk things out and just listen to you. Man, that was hard. I fix everything.
I don’t even talk about something unless I’m in the process of fixing it so it was really good for me to be able to learn to just listen and not have to actively participate.
Amy: I’m really big in communicating with your spouse or partner about what you need. I was lucky that Hobie got it. He realized, wait a second, she’s not looking for advice or a lecture or feedback. She’s just looking for me to listen. I was lucky that you got it.
Sometimes you have to tell your partner, “This is what I need from you.” The greatest thing about being in an industry that your partner really doesn’t know a lot about. Hobie really couldn’t come to the table and say, “You should run this funnel and start it here and go into that campaign and then run this Facebook ad.”
He was never going to give me that advice.
Hobie: I thought I did give you that advice.
Amy: No Babe. No. I love that you didn’t because it would have been overwhelming. I get enough advice from my business partner and those on my team and those in my mastermind.
What was so great, and this is what I want you all to take advantage of in the person that loves you the most as you are growing your business, tell them what you’re feeling. Tell them what you’re frustrated about.
The biggest give you gave me, Hobie, is that you gave me some insight about my personality. You didn’t really know about the funnels or the Facebook ads or what wasn’t working but you would say, “Hey, Babe, I know this is your personality and I know you’re going to worry about this or that. But remember when you did this or that,” you always brought it back to who I was as a person versus just the business.
You put a human touch to it. That was a huge gift. I don’t even know if you knew you did that but it was a huge gift. I think if we ask our partners to just relate it back to us and ask for support for ourselves and that you aren’t expecting advice about the business stuff, that is huge for me.
Hobie: I appreciate that because I definitely think everybody has a tendency to want to answer the question whether they actually know the answer or not. For me, I had to concentrate hard on not trying to answer questions I 100% did not have the answer to.
Amy: Right. And as a man I know that’s tough. But I love that you didn’t. Now, tell me this. What do you think is the most frustrating thing/things (I’m going to guess there’s more than one) about being married to an entrepreneur?
Hobie: I would have to say it’s the weeks leading up to a launch, especially the week before a launch.
Amy: What are you talking about? I’m sweet as pie leading up to a launch.
Hobie: Man.
Amy: Okay.
Hobie: I’m wearing a flack jacket and a bomber hat the week before it comes on.
Amy: That’s so sad.
Hobie: It’s not that bad. It’s bad but it’s not that bad. I think the overwhelming stress that you go through when you’re about to do a launch and when it’s first happening because there’s always going to be a hiccup. Even now. You know exactly what you’re doing today and every time we have a launch there’s still little things that happen.
Amy: Yep.
Hobie: It’s stressful. And it’s hard because sometimes you’re thinking about what went wrong or what you need to do and it stresses you out and sometimes it will come out a little sideways and you’ll think that something I’m doing is creating problems.
That part is kind of hard. That’s where I think the practice with communication comes in the most important because it’s easy to kind of get angry at one another and forget there’s a root cause of it and it’s not each other.
Amy: I’m so glad you brought this one up. The saying is so very true that you hurt the ones you love the most. Unfortunately, Hobie is like my target during a launch. I’m totally not proud to say this but he can look at me sideways and I just want to pounce all over him because I’m full of stress leading up to these launches.
In the early days we would just fight. We would bicker at each other. That would really throw me off to focus on the launch. Now that we’ve done it enough, and you can take this lesson today, you don’t have to do a bunch of launches to learn this lesson, I communicate with Hobie.
We’re two weeks out from a launch. For me, the weeks leading up to a launch are the most stressful. Once we launch I feel I can breathe a little bit but leading up to it and getting everything ready is when I’m most stressed out.
I will let him know we are a few weeks until the launch and that I’m feeling super overwhelmed, I need to do this, I need to do that. I just need to get it off my chest. He could care less what I list of all the things I need to do. But he knows, again, I just need to talk.
That may be more of a female thing, but I need to do it. Then he is super aware. I will say I know Hobie’s not perfect but he is sure close to it. He will do little things throughout the day. He will come up and pour me some lemon water during the day to make sure I’m staying hydrated.
He will come in and make sure I have coffee or ask me what I want for dinner. We have a good life. Hobie’s a firefighter so he’s home for 24 hours at a time. It also means he’s gone for 24 hours at a time a lot. But when he’s home and I’m in a launch he will make it his mission to take care of me. Would you agree with that?
Hobie: Yeah, for sure. I know how hard you’re working and I know that when I’m away that makes it even harder for you. So when I’m around it’s important to me to help as much as I can.
Amy: Totally. I just love it. Let’s talk a little bit more about what frustrates you because I think there is one thing you’ve told me before and I think a lot of entrepreneurs make the same mistake I’m making. I want them to hear from you how much it’s frustrating. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Hobie: I was still thinking about the week or two before the launch.
Amy: Okay Babe. We’re moving on. I know I’m a wreck during those times. But anything else you can think of?
Hobie: Yeah. There are times with you being involved in so many different areas of social media that it can be easy to get lost in the social community world.
Amy: Or on my phone in general.
Hobie: Yeah, that’s pretty much what I’m trying to say in a very long way. Amy: Babe, you can be honest. My listeners want you to be very honest. Hobie: Everything on Instagram that’s not related to your work.
Amy: This is an argument Hobie and I have. I love Instagram, as you all know. I love doing InstaStories and watching InstaStories and Instagram. Hobie will say, “Babe, why are you looking at all of these people that you don’t even know who they are or what they’re doing? Why do you care?”
Hobie, we’ve never talked about it this much in depth, but would you agree that it’s not so much that you care what I’m looking at, it’s when I do it?
Hobie: Yeah. It’s all about the timing for me. I get it 100% that you definitely have to be connected to that world. But when it’s just the two of us together while we’re doing something that world needs to go away.
Amy: We have this funny thing where we made this up at the airport. We were standing in a really long line at the airport coming back from our last family vacation. I was on my phone. I think that’s what we all do. We’re standing in line. No one’s really talking. So I got on my phone and was looking through tons of Instagram stories.
Hobie: Well, I was talking.
Amy: Okay, Hobie said he was talking to me and, you guys, I couldn’t even hear him. It was almost like I totally tune everything out when I’m looking at any kind of social media or anything on my phone.
A good five or ten minutes passed and I looked up and could feel…you know how you can feel your partner’s frustration, he didn’t say a word to me and I could feel he was mad at me. I asked, “What’s your problem? What’s wrong?”
He said, “For the last ten minutes we’ve been standing in this line, we haven’t said a word to each other because your head is in that phone. Be here with me.” Do you remember this whole thing?
Hobie: I do.
Amy: This was a little argument we had. He said, “Be here with me.” At first I want to tell you I was frustrated, lay off. I always say, and I know this is wrong, but I always say, “This is my work. This is what I do.” But I think I use that as an excuse too much.
My world, in terms of my business, is on my phone. I can see everything I need to see on my phone so I use that as an excuse.
Here’s where my Ah-ha moment was and I don’t think I’ve shared this with you yet, Hobie, but I realized I have an amazing husband that wants my attention and wants to spend more time with me and wants to talk with me. He’s standing here saying, “Please put down the phone.”
How could I ever think something on that phone is more important than spending time with him? We all know that we do this business, or a lot of us do, to have freedom as entrepreneurs, and here I am tied to my phone every minute.
We now have a funny thing where if I’m on my phone too much and I get sucked into it, because I do still get sucked into it, we have a code word. The code word is
Hobie:“George Clooney, George Clooney!”
Amy: I don’t know why it’s George Clooney but we made it up while standing in line at the airport after this argument. Something must have been on Instagram where I saw George Clooney. So, if my husband says, “George Clooney” that means I am getting sucked into my phone, come back and let’s be here together.
There are tons of times when I’m not with Hobie so I have enough time to get on social media to not be present with him because I’m not with him. I just wanted to share that with you guys. As an entrepreneur we can use an excuse that we “have” to be tied to our phone. We don’t. We truly don’t.
If you have a partner that wants to spend time with you, just cherish every minute of that. At least that’s what I’m trying to do.
I feel I am talking too much. I want you to talk a lot because this is my show and they hear from me all the time. So here’s a question I have for you. I talked about this in the intro, over the years you have become a firefighter. Over the last five or six years, would you say?
Hobie: Yeah.
Amy: It feels the time has flown by. We have a huge difference in our lives where you went from a general contractor to become a firefighter. At the same time I quit Tony Robbins and started this business. Over the years I’ve started to make more money than you.
That’s kind of the saddest thing ever. You save lives everyday. I do internet marketing but I have a bigger paycheck than you. I know, something’s wrong with this world. However, it is what it is.
Hobie: You save people’s lives too by teaching them things.
Amy: Love! Stop. Just stop.
Hobie: It’s true.
Amy: This is why I love him, you guys. He does these little…says things like that everyday. Here’s the deal though, I want you to talk just raw, real, honest about what it’s like to have a wife that makes a lot more money than you.
What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine. We have a very, very clear understanding of that. I know I wouldn’t be where I am today without Hobie. But at the end of the day my paycheck is bigger. Hobie is an Alpha male to the core. So I want you to talk about what that’s been like over the years.
Hobie: It is interesting because as it shifted to you I was excited about it and it was cool and I had a few other friends who said, “What a quality problem,” when I tried to talk to them about it. But I think the hardest part for me was when you really started doing well.
We would go meet our accountant, our tax guy. That was a humility that I hadn’t experienced in a relationship before. I was always kind of used to having the attention on me in some form or another. Basically, everything I did for an income had nothing to do with our taxes. That was definitely a hard thing to transition into.
Again, there were people I talked to about it. I tried to confide in them but they told me, “What a quality problem.” That’s easy to say until you’re going through it. It took a little bit.
I think the saving grace for me was that you and I talked about it. I could have easily turned aggression toward you and started putting you down to make me feel better. But I told you I didn’t feel good about that.
I had no input on our taxes because it wasn’t even enough to make an impact. It was very humbling.
Amy: Humbling, for sure. And exactly what Hobie said. We started to talk about it. Wouldn’t you say, Babe, that you definitely feel like you have been part of the business as we’ve grown our business? Would you say that is true?
Hobie: Yeah, 100%. It’s weird because it’s not that he’s been a part of the business in terms of making some really big core decisions around how I market or how I teach or the content. He’s not in the day-to-day decision making. However, any big move I make has always been with Hobie’s insight as we look at our business and life and what we want to do.
I also love that I have brought Hobie in and he is really good friends with my business partner, Devin Duncan. Devin and Hobie text each other and talk to each other and we’ve gone on vacation with Devin and his wife, Melanie Duncan, so we’ve all been together.
When Devin and I started to become partners it was important that Devin said, “I want to make sure Hobie feels like he is a part of this decision as well because he is part of this business.”
I think that is great as an entrepreneur for you to look at your partner and think that they are part of it. If they feel what you’re doing right now is a hobby because you’re not making a lot of money or if they feel it’s just some side gig because they are the breadwinner (your partner looks at what you’re doing as just some little side thing you do at night) then it’s going to be really hard for you to take off and build what you’re trying to build.
Getting your partner involved, letting them meet the people you work with, taking them to some events or just letting them see your world is always a good thing. However, Hobie and I have had some weird situations and I promised to bring this up.
I would bring Hobie with me and then I would talk about work the entire time. How did you feel about that Babe?
Hobie: It can be a littler daunting because I really don’t know all of the ins and outs of your business. If somebody wanted to talk about who’s working for you I could tell them that. If they want to talk about your business partner I could tell them that.
I couldn’t tell you exactly what you’re teaching from one day to the next unless, for some reason, you and I happened to talk about it that day. I kind of felt myself not really fitting in when we would go to these little soirees.
Amy: Soirees. See how he says that? He seems so enthusiastic. My advice to you is to include your partner. Let them meet the people you’re working with. Get them to be part of the conversations. Take them with you on business trips. Except, if that’s not what they want.
That is not what Hobie wants. We did it a little and then we realized it wasn’t fun for us. I felt stressed out the whole time worrying about Hobie and whether he was having a good time or if he was talking to somebody. Was it going to be too much about work?
It’s like if Hobie brought me to every firefighter convention there was and I had to talk firefighting with people. I would say, “Get me out of here right now.”
Now I include my work friends into the fun stuff. We’ll have game night at our house and my friends in the industry will come over and Hobie gets to meet everybody. He knows everyone by now, but we have really fun times together.
It’s not just about work but he gets to meet the people I do business with. Then, this is so great, Hobie went to James Wedmore’s bachelor party. What did you do on that bachelor party?
Hobie: We went whitewater rafting. My element.
Amy: Yes. Hobie was in his element. I love it. My business partner, Devin, likes to be in the woods and likes to be in the outdoors. However, he always sticks out. What was he wearing? Devin was in this nice white shirt and crisp pants in the white water rafting.
Hobie: Perfect matching L. L. Bean Ensemble.
Amy: He would be so mad if you said that. It was not L. L. Bean. But anyway, they were whitewater rafting with Devin and James and Rick Mulready. And there’s my husband. I loved it. I loved every minute about it because they were doing something fun and they liked Hobie enough to include him just because Hobie is good friends with these guys.
When we went to Blackberry Farm with Michael Hyatt, I had won an affiliate trip to Blackberry Farm. There was Hobie with Jeff Walker and Mike Hyatt. They were talking about….whatever. Who knows? But I love that Hobie gets to be in on that world but doesn’t have to know the business.
I think that’s because we’ve created enough fun stuff so it’s not always business. Would you agree?
Hobie: I agree because I definitely think when there are speaking engagements and things like that, even though there is a social aspect to it, I definitely think that’s a business engagement. For me to go with you, all I’m doing is not helping your business.
You are going to worry about what I’m doing and here I am, I start not engaging with people and trying to find places to hide or some other place to be. All it does is create anxiety between the two of us that doesn’t need to be there.
Amy: Yes. When I get anxious and start doing this weird thing where I pick on Hobie and asking why he’s not talking and ask him to “come over here,” I am riding the whole time and I hate that about myself and my personality. It’s nervousness and anxiousness.
Now we just do it different. We do the fun stuff with my friends that are in the industry. But when it’s a business conference, when I’m speaking on stage, when I’m at Social Media Marketing World or Traffic and Conversion, you will not see Hobie there with me because it’s not something we enjoy doing together. That’s cool too.
You’ve just got to find your groove with your partner, for sure.
Hobie: Absolutely. One of the things I was thinking about with that was that I like to come watch you speak every once in a while but no way is it conducive to spend an entire day at an event that you’re at for the whole day.
Amy: True. Back in the day when I would do more speaking you would come to the San Diego stuff and watch me speak. That made me so nervous so I’m glad I don’t do that a lot anymore.
Hobie: Yeah, but you’re hot and you were on stage so I had to come.
Amy: Stop. Just stop. Stop talking now. Now we’re moving on to the next question. This one is so key. I’m really curious what you’re going to share here because I think you have some good insights around this question. What advice would you have for a wife or husband whose spouse is about to launch new business?
I’m hoping some entrepreneurs that are listening might say to their partner, “Hey, listen to this episode. This might help us with our communication and how we deal with some of the hiccups along the way.” So, what advice would you give to the wife or husband whose spouse is actually growing the business?
Hobie: Like any relationship, regardless of whether it’s entrepreneur, spouse, or whatever it is, you’ve got to have communication. It’s got to go both ways. I don’t feel either person should be expecting something from the other one.
If you’re expecting it, it’s a resentment waiting to happen so I think you’ve got to be careful with that. But to me you are making a commitment as a spouse that you need to be 100% in. I can’t imagine that we would have wound up where we are and that this could have been this successful if I hadn’t made a conscious decision to say I was 100% in.
At no point did I do anything but accept that. I always think that one’s funny but you can’t say, “I’m behind you 100% except that” or “except for that” because if you’re doing that, you’re already going in with reservations.
If you’re going in with reservations you will have resentments. Your spouse could do nothing wrong. The entrepreneur could do nothing wrong and you’re already going to be angry at them. I feel you’ve got to be 100% in 100% of the time. You would have to either agree with me on this, Amy, or tell me I’m off on what I think the number is but I think you’re 40% of the success of the business.
Amy: Interesting. Tell me more.
Hobie: You’re doing the work. You’re brilliant in what you do. But at the same time, if there weren’t things getting taken care of outside of the business here in the house, in our relationship, just little things like being able to be a sounding board for certain things to help you come up with teaching strategies or anything that you need someone who’s not right there in the situation to talk to about something, I feel there would have been a lot of wrong decisions if we hadn’t been there to do it together.
If I was always worried about myself I wouldn’t have been there for you.
Amy: That’s so true.
Hobie: Not when you needed me anyway.
Amy: I do think, and this is something I’ve never even thought or talked about before until you just said something that sparked it for me, I believe as you have supported me through these years that you’ve put your ego aside.
When I was being particularly difficult or when the light was shining on me or when my time felt more important than your time (that’s me dictating that and not the truth) I feel you put your ego aside (I’m not speaking for you so tell me if I’m wrong) knowing that I was really working hard toward something that could benefit our entire family. Do you feel there were times you had to put your ego aside?
Hobie: Yeah. Absolutely. But I think it was that 100%. I made 100% commitment to help you in any way I could for you to be successful. Sometimes that’s what it is. It’s biting the bullet and letting you vent at me when it’s not me you need to vent at, just little things that I was able to not take personal and be able to be able to roll with it.
I do think that’s humility. I think it’s being humble. It’s not easy to be humble.
Amy: Let’s just be clear that I’m not always crazy, right?
Hobie: No. Not at all. On the flip side, I’m speaking from a spouse part, but what I needed as a spouse, you gave me. Every time there were things coming on like a launch or something that took all of your time, you would tell me, “I’m sorry this is taking so long. I know all my time right now is on the business. I’m sorry.”
Even that little acknowledgement was great. I think if you had been the type of person that felt I should do “that” because you were doing “this”…If you had done that at any point in this I’m not so sure I could have been as humble as I was. I think you were fantastic at being able to acknowledge that to me.
Then like what you and I talked about, making time for one another.
Amy: The whole making time for one another reminds me…I want you to talk about that because over the last few months, I don’t know where we heard this in the first place so we didn’t make it up ourselves, but Hobie and I do this thing at the beginning of every month. I ask him what I could do that would make me a better wife to him.
He would ask, “What can I do to be a better husband?” It was “what do you need from me?” We then ask our son, Cade, what we could do to be a better mom or better dad. We asked this all around. Cade hasn’t really asked what he could do to be a better kid but it goes one way with a kid. I never thought about that part.
Hobie and I ask each other this question at the beginning of every month. This month you shared something with me that I thought was so insightful so let’s tell them what you said to me.
Hobie: For me, we’re on two different schedules. I work 24 hours and sometimes you work 24 hours as an entrepreneur. But I think you would be going from a live webinar to a phone call to something else and I would be off from work and you weren’t around so I would get involved in a house project or something I had been wanting to do for a while.
Then all of the sudden you would have a free hour and you would come to me and you would ask, “How come I want to hang out with you right now and you don’t want to hang out?”
That was when I think we both had a major Ah-ha moment. You have to make time. When I say you have to make time, I mean if you’re the entrepreneur it’s your business so there has to be a timeframe where you need to say, “Honey, tonight at 7 p.m. I’m shutting it down, it’s just you and I for the rest of the night.”
You can then both commit that nothing else will be going on but the two of you from 7 o’clock on.
Amy: I thought that was really cool that you brought that up.
Hobie: I think it’s great. To me, at least it makes me not be resentful. You get resentful that I don’t drop everything and be with you at that time and I don’t get resentful that you’re not making time.
Amy: Right. I thought it was just when I had free time because Hobie has more free time on the days he’s off that I could just say, “alright, let’s hang out.”
Then I thought, “What the heck? Why are you busy? You could do that at any other time.” But that’s not fair. I think as entrepreneurs it’s easy for us to get selfish with our time and everybody else’s time because we’re working our buns off.
I know how you feel. I know you are working so many hours and juggling a million things. It’s easy to get resentful if somebody else doesn’t have time for you when you think how hard it is to make the time.
I realized I was being selfish and Hobie asked me to just tell him a time and he would be ready for me. But we have to commit to a certain time instead of just whenever I am free. I thought that was really cool and I’m so glad you shared that with me.
Hobie: I think it just adds value to both of you.
Amy: I think so too. I think there’s got to be a mutual respect. That’s what I wanted to bring up the most throughout these questions with you. There has to be a mutual respect. I respect Hobie and what he’s doing in his business. I am committed to supporting his dreams and what he wants to do and I know he respects me and what I’m doing.
Sometimes what I’m doing feels bigger than everything else because it’s so intense and so stressful. I’m sacrificing so much. But if you look at your family, everybody else is sacrificing along with you. It’s easy to forget that and I know I’ve missed that along the way.
I thought we could just do a little rapid fire of some of the things we do in our relationship and that we’ve learned along the way. We haven’t always been this solid. It was very rocky in the beginning until Hobie kind of realized how to deal with my craziness and I realized to stop being so selfish with my time and how I wanted to run this business without including him.
We learned that early on. One, I think we’re totally committed to each other’s dreams. Like I said, when he wanted to become a firefighter I was all in. And when I wanted to do this he was all in. I love that Hobie was talking about how you have to be all in, you’ve got to support your entrepreneur and vice versa as well.
I also think, Hobie, that we are in this together. We remember the days we had credit card debt in the first two years. We remember the hard times. I read somewhere that when you’re in a relationship if you talk about the hard times, “back when”, or you talk about when you first met it actually strengthens your relationship.
We’ve had those moments where we were sitting in our spa…remember, Hobie and I came from a really small condo that we lived in for many, many years before we got to buy our dream home. These days it might be late at night and we get in the spa together and it’s overlooking our house.
Hobie, how many times have we had the conversation like, “How is this our life?”
Hobie: Every single time.
Amy: I know.
Hobie: I don’t think we ever forget that.
Amy: And that’s great. If you’re in the rough times right now and in the tough times and things are rocky and stressful just know that once you get to a time where we are now where things are easier, never perfect, let’s not be crazy, but things are easier for us right now and you can look back and see how far you’ve come.
I think that’s why, Hobie, we’re so strong. Holy cow, we’ve been through some rough patches, especially when it came to money.
Hobie: For sure.
Amy: I love that. Also, I’m just kind of going through some things to kind of wrap up some of the things Hobie and I talked about, I think another one is laughing a lot. Hobie is naturally silly. You guys are getting him at his most serious right now. But if you watch my Instagram stories you see that the first thing he did when he got near my podcast equipment, he thought he was a rapper.
He liked to do a little beat box into my microphone and he’s usually never serious. But I love that because I’m way too serious at times. Would you agree?
Hobie: I am literally duct taped in this chair right now so that I can seem a little more professional for this.
Amy: I still hear you kind of bouncing around.
Hobie: I’m bouncing.
Amy: I know. I could hear it. We laugh a lot and we don’t do tons of stuff. We don’t travel the world a lot. We aren’t super busybodies so we really like to be at home. But we’re always finding something that is fun for us to do that is away from the work. I absolutely love that.
The other thing is that I think we show appreciation a lot. This is something I want to talk to the girl bosses out there, the lady entrepreneurs, the are building their business and are married or have a partner.
One thing I learned right before I met Hobie (it was timing perfect), I was still working at Tony Robbins and was working an event called Date With Destiny. Date With Destiny is an event that he still does. There is one day they talk only about the masculine and feminine.
I learned so much from that. All the girl bosses out there have to get to a place where we tap into being a little bit aggressive and go getter and go, go, hustle, hustle. You guys know how I feel about that word. I hate it.
But it is a part of building the business. If you’re always in that mode and then you go and step out of your home office and there’s your husband and you come at him with that kind of masculine energy that you do need at times as you grow your business, but when you bring it into your relationship there are times, Hobie, that I’m sure you were like, “Holy cow, step back bit.”
Hobie: Yeah. Again, that was something that was good for you and I to learn together. But it also took you recognizing it. But it took me telling you.
Amy: Exactly.
Hobie: You would come at me with that attitude and I would literally, instead of just walking away as angry as I could possibly be, I would have to call you out on it.
Amy: That’s what I love. Hobie is thinking about the times I wasn’t being so nice. But, even just that overall kind of take-charge attitude, what I learned through Date With Destiny, and not all of you are going to agree with me and that’s okay, we can totally agree to disagree, I like to not always be in that go, go, go mode.
I want to be the girl in our relationship and I like Hobie being the boy. We have those moments as well where I can kind of step away from the business and come into my own like that. I know I can see him come to me with open arms. Our relationship is so much easier that way versus me always being in that high-stress aggressive place.
I love what you said, Hobie, that you had to kind of point it out, “Whoa Babe, soften up a little bit. We don’t need to be in that kind of energy right now.”
Hobie: I’m always entertained when I hear people describing that they want a strong personality like theirs in their significant other. I wonder if they understand what two super strong personalities would do in the same room together.
Amy: It’s true. I would say both of us have strong personalities but I think you are able to…Hobie chooses his battles. He shows up in that strong personality when it’s absolutely necessary; whereas, I probably choose to be there a little bit more than I need to. Would you agree?
Hobie: Yeah, probably.
Amy: I love that though. I love it because it kind of balances each other out. I guess I wanted to say that I’m being a little careful about this part of the conversation because at the same time, I’m a feminist and I stand behind the fact women can do anything in this world.
I’m not saying you always have to be feminine. I’m just saying there’s a time and place as you grow your business to make sure you don’t live in the masculine. No one ever wants to do that. I don’t think it’s going to help anybody. Just be aware of it. Does that sound okay, Hobie?
Hobie: Yeah. I think it’s good. I’ve seen you have to be in situations where you had to be that take-charge, this-is-how-it’s-going-to-be person.
Amy: I do it in my business all the time. I guess I am just saying that I don’t need to do it in my relationship as well.
Hobie: I think you’re good at that. I think we definitely talk our way through. We both try to pay attention to the other and it’s pretty obvious to each of us because of how much we communicate when we’re on a topic that’s important.
Like you just said about choosing your battles, every battle is not your battle to win. You really just need to figure out what really is important and what isn’t important. If everything feels important to you, you’re the problem.
Amy: That is a very good point. I think we covered it all. I cannot thank you enough, Hobie, for coming on the show. I know this isn’t your favorite thing and I know it was a little uncomfortable. But I think it was so valuable for everyone to hear from you because I talk about you all the time.
I call you my hunky husband all the time.
Hobie: Hunky husband?
Amy: Do you like it?
Hobie: Hunky husband?
Amy: Isn’t that a good one?
Hobie: Yeah, it’s kind of good.
Amy: Hobie does not listen to my podcast so he is not aware that he is part of these conversations.
Hobie: I definitely think you’re going to need to come over here and cut this duct tape off me. This is as long as I’ve ever sat in my life.
Amy: I know. So we’ll wrap it up. Thank you, Babe, so much. I love you to the moon and back. Thank you so much for supporting me on this journey.
Hobie: I love you to, my super successful hot wife.
Amy: Okay, let’s wrap this up.
There you have it. Hobie Porterfield has left the building. But I wanted to take a minute to first thank you for listening. I’m so glad you tuned in to this extra unique interview I’ve never done anything like before. I’m so glad you go to meet Hobie because he’s a big part of my life and I wanted to share him with you as well.
The second thing I’ll say is that if you were in a regular job going to a 9-to-5 everyday then you would likely not have the same challenges, obstacles, needs, and wants that you have as a growing entrepreneur. You have a unique situation.
It’s going to mean you need to communicate at a whole different level with your partner. You need to let them know what you want, what you need, where you’re struggling, and how they can best support you.
On the flip side, you need to listen to them because as an entrepreneur you are bringing an extra level of stress to the relationship. I think that’s just a fact. So with that your spouse or partner might need something a little bit different from you.
I think that’s what I’ve learned over the years. I need to be really in tune with what Hobie needs and what he wants and how we communicate together around these really unique challenges that a lot of my friends that have J-O-Bs don’t have to deal with.
We have a special situation and we need to treat it as such and that’s exactly why I wanted to do this interview with Hobie today. I hope you enjoyed it and I cannot wait to see you here again next week.
Thanks for tuning in. Have a wonderful week. Bye for now.
