Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the CTOX podcast.
Speaker 1: For many people, the hardest sales conversation you'll ever have about your fractional CTO business is the one you have at the kitchen table with your spouse or partner before you have a single sales conversation.
Speaker 1: Going fractional is a career move, but it's also a life move. And if you have a partner, they're part of this decision whether you include them or not. Today, we're talking about how to actually have that conversation
Speaker 1: honestly,
Speaker 1: strategically,
Speaker 1: and in a way that brings your spouse in instead of pushing them away. Lior, I am so excited to record with you on this very important, probably set of conversations.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Me too. This is to be honest, it's one of these the topic we'll cover today
Speaker 2: is gonna be very useful to many leaps you would wanna go through life.
Speaker 2: Whether it's doing this fractional CTO thing or really anything else. So I'm excited to dive into it.
Speaker 1: Definitely.
Speaker 1: And this isn't
Speaker 1: a topic that most people in the fractional space talk about openly.
Speaker 1: Why did you wanna do an episode specifically
Speaker 1: about the spouse conversation?
Speaker 2: Well, it's one of the common things we ask. You know, it's common things we,
Speaker 2: hear rather. So when people come into the program and they,
Speaker 2: start to understand what it's like to imagine their future as a fractional CTO, and certainly what it's like to go through a program like we have at CTO X.
Speaker 2: It's big financial commitments, a big time commitment.
Speaker 2: And they realized they cannot really do this without their spouse.
Speaker 2: This is a real when they have it,
Speaker 2: this is a real element that sometimes is a make or break.
Speaker 2: I've been in conversation
Speaker 2: where
Speaker 2: I asked them, can I talk to your spouse? Right? Let's make sure they're on board.
Speaker 2: And whether it's the wife or the husband, whatever that is.
Speaker 2: So sometimes the spouse has this amazing effect.
Speaker 2: Right? It's all gas, all green light, and you're getting sudden. Sometimes it's the opposite.
Speaker 2: And sometimes the opposite for good reasons. Like, you know what? Your spouse is bringing up points that are gonna make you reconsider this from an alignment perspective of what you guys need right now in your life.
Speaker 2: And sometimes it's not. Sometimes the spouse needs to get on board to this new bigger vision. So,
Speaker 2: it's it's a key point in life,
Speaker 2: and that's why we decided to break it down for
Speaker 1: everyone. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when someone's sitting on this idea of going fractional, and they haven't brought it up at home yet, what do you think is usually holding them back? And what are they actually afraid of? Yeah, so
Speaker 2: there's a lot of fears that come up when we think about our future.
Speaker 2: And some people have, so two common ones, the most common ones, fear of failure and fear of success.
Speaker 2: And fear of failure really ties into
Speaker 2: some kind of an embarrassment,
Speaker 2: some kind of a feeling
Speaker 2: that you think you're going to experience
Speaker 2: that you don't want to you're trying to avoid. So you're bringing up all these avoidance behaviors
Speaker 2: into your life and your decision making.
Speaker 2: And fear of success is the is the actual opposite. So it's, you think you can handle
Speaker 2: what's going to come, you think you can handle
Speaker 2: making the amount of money you want to make, having the amount of freedom that you wanna have, having the amount of responsibility
Speaker 2: you wanna have. Because when you're successful, certainly doing this, you have your a lot of responsibilities. If it's for your own life, for your clients,
Speaker 2: for the your clients' customers. And
Speaker 2: so and it's a lot of responsibility to be a successful fractional CTO.
Speaker 2: And whether you're on that side of the fence, fear of success or fear of failure, both are very real. So one might be one some person might hearing this and they will say, like, fear of success. I would love success.
Speaker 2: And there are other people that say the other thing.
Speaker 2: Now they would every nobody would say, I don't want success,
Speaker 2: but they would say, I'm a I don't feel comfortable
Speaker 2: managing,
Speaker 2: you know, eight clients. I don't feel comfortable leading
Speaker 2: five teams or so on. So that's how they would phrase it. Right? Which is really
Speaker 2: fear of success. So stepping into that.
Speaker 2: Now, these fears are very interesting because fears are there in our minds to protect us.
Speaker 2: Right? Humans weren't developed with iPhones and computers.
Speaker 2: So fear is there in our body,
Speaker 2: because thousands of years ago,
Speaker 2: when something bad was about to happen, it meant death.
Speaker 2: That's what it meant. It meant death.
Speaker 2: But we're no longer there. We're no longer in that physical survivor mode.
Speaker 2: Certainly, if you're not, you know, if you're considering being a factual CEO, you probably figured us the physical survival piece
Speaker 2: out of your life.
Speaker 2: And but the fear is real. It's very real. So we need to understand is it giving us the right signal? Or is it giving us a false signal?
Speaker 2: I'm a very big believer
Speaker 2: that you shouldn't ignore your emotions.
Speaker 2: Right? They're evidence.
Speaker 2: And ignoring your emotions is like tampering with evidence.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't mean your emotion and some people call it intuition are true.
Speaker 2: It just doesn't mean it.
Speaker 2: It's there to preserve you.
Speaker 2: When fear comes up, it wants to preserve everything about you. It wants to keep you safe. It loves you. That's why it's there.
Speaker 2: Now the question is, do you wanna stay the
Speaker 2: same? Do you wanna stay the same?
Speaker 2: Fear is trying to protect you, but do you wanna stay in your box?
Speaker 2: Do you wanna stay where you are? And this is the opportunity for humans to also kinda look at their life and be the witness, be the observer
Speaker 2: of these thoughts, of these feelings, and decide, you know what? Thank you, fear.
Speaker 2: I will kiss you like, you know, you're my loved child,
Speaker 2: but this is not serving me right now. I need a different emotion
Speaker 2: so I can traverse what I wanna traverse.
Speaker 2: Courage is a great example. Courage, you know, my wife and I my wife actually wrote a book. We'll we'll use this as a shameless plug because it's our podcast.
Speaker 2: My wife wrote a book, the girl who doesn't go on roller coasters. It's a wonderful book about conquering fears, because she grew up in a very anxious household.
Speaker 2: And one of the examples he gives in the books was,
Speaker 2: we were on a flight.
Speaker 2: And she
Speaker 2: asked me how
Speaker 2: amazing it is, you know, to be
Speaker 2: fearless.
Speaker 2: And I told her, fearless is easy.
Speaker 2: Because
Speaker 2: the fear just doesn't come up.
Speaker 2: Courage,
Speaker 2: though, that's much harder.
Speaker 2: And courage as a frame, as a mental model, is recognizing the fact that fear is there,
Speaker 2: and you take the action anyway.
Speaker 2: Everyone in their life
Speaker 2: had these moments of courage,
Speaker 2: where fear was present,
Speaker 2: and they managed to also summon courage
Speaker 2: so they can take the action
Speaker 2: to achieve the thing they wanted to achieve,
Speaker 2: get to the ledge
Speaker 2: with the parachute,
Speaker 2: and take one more step.
Speaker 2: And this is the challenge for a lot of our CTOs,
Speaker 2: even before certainly before they come to the program, also after they come in the program,
Speaker 2: Because those ledges never stop.
Speaker 2: One ledge is when we tell them about the program and we connect with their vision and it's gonna be amazing. And and that first ledge is like it's called money, right, or some kind of a swipe.
Speaker 2: But the next ledge is the first
Speaker 2: pitch.
Speaker 2: And the first time they send a LinkedIn message
Speaker 2: or they go to a meetup
Speaker 2: to do a small talk.
Speaker 2: These are big ledges,
Speaker 2: and you need to cross all of them
Speaker 2: in order to get the achievement, to get the result that you want.
Speaker 2: So what I wanna recognize for anyone listening, fear is normal,
Speaker 2: and it makes a lot of sense. And it loves you, And it's there to protect you.
Speaker 2: And
Speaker 2: if your vision is big enough, you'll realize it's not serving you.
Speaker 2: And this is what I found having worked with hundreds of CTOs now alongside with Marissa in the program,
Speaker 2: which is the CTOs that have the biggest visions
Speaker 2: also manage to summon the most courage.
Speaker 2: And notice how I'm phrasing it. I'm not phrasing it. Also are the most fearless.
Speaker 2: Pretty much anyone that comes in the program tells us something like, I'm not a marketer. I'm not a sales guy. I've never built a business. Some have, but most haven't.
Speaker 2: And it feels utterly uncomfortable in all the ways, which of course it is. But these are skills you learn once. Once you learn them, you learn them. You don't need to learn them again, just like you're not learning how to operate two plus two and how
Speaker 2: to walk again, once you kind of figure it out, you figure it out. So you really need to learn it once.
Speaker 2: But you have to summon the courage. So what I found is that trying to talk yourself out of fear is very difficult.
Speaker 2: And generally doesn't work because emotions are stronger than logic.
Speaker 2: And you can and a lot of our CTOs, they are master logicians,
Speaker 2: very smart individuals.
Speaker 2: That smart,
Speaker 2: creates a lot of problems
Speaker 2: because they convince themselves why not to do something.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna send the 10 LinkedIn messages today.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna do this part of the proposal. I'm not gonna ask for more money than I deserve.
Speaker 2: And that you ask them why, great freaking reasons.
Speaker 2: Very smart people.
Speaker 2: Utterly wrong.
Speaker 2: And when I say wrong, I mean in the context of what it could be,
Speaker 2: in the context of their potential.
Speaker 2: So the better way
Speaker 2: to triage this is to work on your vision.
Speaker 2: If your vision is big enough,
Speaker 2: fear just gets small,
Speaker 2: And courage goes big.
Speaker 2: Fear doesn't disappear.
Speaker 2: But once courage is big enough,
Speaker 2: you
Speaker 2: fall into action
Speaker 2: just like you would fall in love.
Speaker 2: You just fall into action. And really what happens is you fall in love with your vision so much
Speaker 2: that you're like, I I'll figure it out.
Speaker 2: I'll join the program,
Speaker 2: send the message,
Speaker 2: do the talk,
Speaker 2: send the proposal,
Speaker 2: hire the person, you will figure it out. You get into figure out ability mode. And a lot of our studios have high figure out ability once they're in their courage.
Speaker 2: So work on your vision. When you're having to spouse conversation,
Speaker 2: it's not about CTO x.
Speaker 2: It's not about a fractional CTO.
Speaker 2: Both of those are how.
Speaker 2: Both of those are how. That's why if you heard in other episodes,
Speaker 2: we say when people come in the program,
Speaker 2: they're entrepreneurs that happen to be CTOs.
Speaker 2: CTOs happen to be a skill set that you have, and fractional CTO happens to be, a desired label in the market,
Speaker 2: Desired activity that right now,
Speaker 2: you can make great income with and build great freedoms with.
Speaker 2: Is that gonna be true thirty years from now? I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know. It wasn't true thirty years ago.
Speaker 2: So it's a point in time for all of us that can do it and are considering
Speaker 2: it. And it's an amazing point in time. We're all very lucky to be able to do it.
Speaker 2: But the exercise for yourself and the exercise with your spouse is a vision exercise.
Speaker 2: It is not a pros and cons list.
Speaker 2: It is not a p and l.
Speaker 2: It is not a Google research about other programs and other options and other jobs. None of it. That's engineering problems at best.
Speaker 2: Technicalities.
Speaker 2: The question is, what do you wanna do with your life? How do you imagine it?
Speaker 2: If you think about one of the prompts we do in the program, right, when people join in the game plan, we ask them, hey. If we were to sit here a year from now,
Speaker 2: what would have had to happen for you to look at that year
Speaker 2: and say it was amazing?
Speaker 2: It was awesome for you to be happy with your progress.
Speaker 2: What would have needed to happen? Why do we do that?
Speaker 2: We do that because it's about accomplishing your vision,
Speaker 2: and it's hard to accomplish something that doesn't exist.
Speaker 2: You need to create it. You need to fabricate it. You need to hold it in your mind
Speaker 2: for any improvement you wanna have in life,
Speaker 2: whether you wanna lose weight,
Speaker 2: you wanna find your spouse,
Speaker 2: you you wanna be a great parent, you wanna learn a language, you wanna learn guitar.
Speaker 2: It doesn't really matter what it is. It starts with a vision that holds you through the challenges.
Speaker 2: When you can do that,
Speaker 2: the challenges go small. They don't disappear,
Speaker 2: but your confidence goes up.
Speaker 2: Your courage shows up,
Speaker 2: and you can take the next step.
Speaker 1: Beautiful.
Speaker 1: You mentioned
Speaker 1: rightly
Speaker 1: that many of our CTOs are excellent
Speaker 1: logicians,
Speaker 1: and it's hard to take the logistics out even when you have a compelling vision. There is a real investment of resources to doing this on your own, whether it's financially or in terms of time,
Speaker 1: or an uncertainty.
Speaker 1: How do you think someone should frame that cost
Speaker 1: honestly
Speaker 1: to their partner without either sugarcoating it or scaring them off? Is there a right balance in there? How do you balance that with the vision?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'll give you I'll give you an example.
Speaker 2: I was just pitching a client
Speaker 2: for a project.
Speaker 2: And one of the first thing he sent me back is like, well, I didn't have this in my budget, the cost. And I told him you didn't have the revenue in your budget either.
Speaker 2: Like, you can't just look at the cost. When something costs something, you're buying something.
Speaker 2: That's the cost.
Speaker 2: Cost is on the other side
Speaker 2: of procurement.
Speaker 2: You're adding something to your life.
Speaker 2: So the first conversation and this is the same when you guys
Speaker 2: are talking to clients.
Speaker 2: If you're having the money conversation, instead of the value conversation,
Speaker 2: you will fail
Speaker 2: a 100% of the time. That's why in our training, we teach you how to do discovery,
Speaker 2: how to how to make sure you you're extrapolating the extracting the value, and you understand
Speaker 2: what they want to achieve. What is the outcome they're trying to achieve?
Speaker 2: So the spousal conversation
Speaker 2: has to be again, it's about vision.
Speaker 2: It's about where are we going.
Speaker 2: What's possible if we do this? It's an optimistic
Speaker 2: conversation.
Speaker 2: It's an optimistic conversation.
Speaker 2: What are we trying to achieve? What are you trying to achieve personally? What are you trying to achieve as a family or as a couple, whatever the frame is?
Speaker 2: But what are you trying to achieve?
Speaker 2: And and what's nice about entrepreneurship is that you're limited by your imagination.
Speaker 2: If you're coming in saying, I wanna achieve making a million bucks a year, and you're pitching for a w two job,
Speaker 2: well, there's only a handful of those
Speaker 2: that can do that. They can achieve a million bucks a year from a single job in w two. But as an entrepreneur,
Speaker 2: well,
Speaker 2: you can make that doing HVAC.
Speaker 2: You can certainly make it as a fractional CTO. It's a great one, which we recommend.
Speaker 2: But there's a lot of ways to do it. There's a lot of ways to build up into that vision with the how of
Speaker 2: clients, fractional CTO, whatever that is for you, whatever the entrepreneurial route for you is.
Speaker 2: So it is about having that conversation and not and actually noticing that if you're talking about numbers,
Speaker 2: and not the value, not the experience you want to have, not the opportunity you wanna create, you're probably in the wrong side of the conversation.
Speaker 2: Of course, you need to recognize the numbers. Everything
Speaker 2: does have a cost for the thing you're trying to buy. So just be sure you're trying to buy it. Like, we've had cases in our program. So if I'm get on
Speaker 2: still strategy calls or we have these group lunches lunches with Lior, the people come and ask different questions.
Speaker 2: I tell them, if you wanna be a fractional CTO,
Speaker 2: best bang for your buck
Speaker 2: because you're gonna pay
Speaker 2: with money or
Speaker 2: time, period,
Speaker 2: period. You need to learn the things. You need to learn how to get clients. You need to learn how to close them. You need to learn how to pitch. You need to learn how to negotiate. You need to learn how to build roadmaps.
Speaker 2: You need to learn how to, delegate. You need to learn how to do it so it's not it doesn't feel burdensome. And you're not building a job you're building yourself a job. You're gonna need to learn all the things, period.
Speaker 2: There's no way to do this. Otherwise, you're gonna be miserable and poor.
Speaker 2: So if you wanna be successful, all the lessons will need to be learned whether you like it or not, whether it's gonna take you three years or three months. The lessons will be learned, and the actions will be taken.
Speaker 2: Now the question is, how do you wanna pay?
Speaker 2: Do you wanna pay with time?
Speaker 2: Do you wanna pay with money?
Speaker 2: That is the only question. What's nice about this, this is a business route,
Speaker 2: meaning you put in money to make money. It's not like you put in money to just have fun.
Speaker 2: Right? So there's, like, tangible ROI. The numbers actually work from that perspective.
Speaker 2: But I tell them, if you don't wanna be a fractional CEO, this is the worst thing you would ever buy.
Speaker 2: And it doesn't matter if it costs $80
Speaker 2: or $80,000.
Speaker 2: It is the worst thing you could buy because you don't want it.
Speaker 2: You don't want the result.
Speaker 2: So if you want the result and what does wanting the result mean? It means you have an exciting vision
Speaker 2: for your life.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's the vision for the next six months. Maybe it's the vision for your next thirty years. It doesn't matter what's the frame of the vision.
Speaker 2: But it is a function of vision.
Speaker 2: Meaning, you have the vision and you derive from the vision.
Speaker 2: What are the things I need to do in reality to achieve that,
Speaker 2: to experience that? So if you can maintain the vision conversation and recognize that cost is a thing
Speaker 2: for something you buy,
Speaker 2: and now you're just deciding on how to pay.
Speaker 2: I'm not talking about Visa, Mastercard, or Amex.
Speaker 2: Do you wanna pay with money? Do you wanna pay with time? Do you wanna pay with stress?
Speaker 2: Do you wanna pay with loneliness?
Speaker 2: It's part of the values of not doing
Speaker 2: it alone.
Speaker 2: All of these things
Speaker 2: are on deck,
Speaker 2: and all of these are options and opportunities.
Speaker 2: Once you can tune into that, the decision
Speaker 2: becomes easy
Speaker 2: One way or another. Decision to do it or not to do it. But that's how you filter through the opportunity and recognize
Speaker 2: the actions you need to take.
Speaker 1: This is so good.
Speaker 1: What mistakes have you seen people make when they have the conversation with their spouse? Like, is there a version of this talk that actually backfires and maybe even creates more resistance?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I'm first of all, I'm a big believer that
Speaker 2: this is something we train and practice implicit and explicit.
Speaker 2: Life is about having these amazing relationships. Right? In fact, on on one of our episodes, we talked about the four freedoms. For me, it's freedom of relationships. And eventually, for people in the program, that is the main freedom everybody oriented to, which is choosing the people you wanna do life with, in a room or an ism.
Speaker 2: I
Speaker 2: like if I hear that a prospect, you know, fought with his wife. Right? Or a a wife fought with her husband about CTOX, and that's a very bad result.
Speaker 2: Very bad result.
Speaker 2: I would not introduce conflict to your life with your dreams.
Speaker 2: Challenges.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 2: Sure. Of course.
Speaker 2: But conflicts.
Speaker 2: Like, if you're gonna come and say, no. I'm doing CTOX, so we split. I'm like, no. No. Please. Please don't.
Speaker 2: We will really prefer that you don't do this with us.
Speaker 2: Not a great reason.
Speaker 2: This is not a hill to stand. I'm like, just you know, just do it by yourself.
Speaker 2: Do it by yourself, you know, keep keep keep your relationship do it by yourself.
Speaker 2: But if you do it, right, you'll never be in that position. Because the reason why hopefully,
Speaker 2: you're in,
Speaker 2: you have a spouse
Speaker 2: doesn't matter what the level of the relationship is,
Speaker 2: in principle, they're there because they love you, and they want to see you win. They want to see you succeed.
Speaker 2: And that should be the focus on the conversation. So if the conversation turns into like, ultimatum conversation, you never get me, you don't get it. I really want to.
Speaker 2: Let's find a different way. Let's find a different way to communicate.
Speaker 2: So one, I definitely think, and we've seen it sometimes, like, you know, my wife really doesn't want me to do this. My husband really doesn't want me to do this. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: That's probably not true. Meaning,
Speaker 2: you probably did a different job or you did not a great job in explaining your vision because CT UX is not a thing you do. It's how you do something.
Speaker 2: Right? The real conversation, what? Are you saying your spouse doesn't want you to make $40,000
Speaker 2: a month, have amazing clients, and work twenty to thirty hours a week? Like, that's what you're saying?
Speaker 2: That's weird.
Speaker 2: That's weird. Like, if I actually hear that, that's very weird.
Speaker 2: And that is to say because the focus would be on the result,
Speaker 2: not the way to get there. Like, my spouse really doesn't want me to take a Suburban,
Speaker 2: you know, to the hike. I'm like, what?
Speaker 2: What? Does your spouse care if it's a Suburban or a Sedan, or does he not want you to go on a hike? Like, what are we talking about? Because the CTOX is a hike. Is a is it just a way to get there? It's a how.
Speaker 2: So,
Speaker 2: first of all, just creating risk in your actual relationships because of your vision.
Speaker 2: And great relationships, your vision is supposed to make them bigger,
Speaker 2: make them bigger, make them better, get support, people love helping. In fact, it's one of our
Speaker 2: teachings on if you ask for advice,
Speaker 2: if you ask for money, you get advice. If you ask for advice, you get money. And that is to say because people really wanna help.
Speaker 2: So the nature of humans is to be helpful. So one, risking relationships.
Speaker 2: The other is focusing on the technicality. So the CTO psyche and the persona
Speaker 2: is very analyzer,
Speaker 2: in in nature by nature, not everybody.
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 2: But by nature, as a persona, as a profession, it attracts the analyzers, which means
Speaker 2: you think that the way you make decisions is with a lot of detail.
Speaker 2: The more detail, the more confident the decision is.
Speaker 2: That might be for you. And I would argue in the program to kind of learn that's probably not the right way to apply,
Speaker 2: decision making to a lot of the things around business.
Speaker 2: But it's most certainly not the way for your spouse.
Speaker 2: It's actually so rare to have, like, two analyzer,
Speaker 2: you know, people in a relationship.
Speaker 2: And certainly when it happens, I'll talk about that in a minute, but it's rare. So just be tuned into the fact that the way that you make decisions is probably not how your spouse makes decisions.
Speaker 2: And they need to understand
Speaker 2: maybe the risk or maybe the experience,
Speaker 2: or or maybe details,
Speaker 2: you know, time, money, place, all the things.
Speaker 2: But it all has to start with vision.
Speaker 2: And you have to come in with excited energy.
Speaker 2: If you're coming into a conversation
Speaker 2: and saying,
Speaker 2: well, I saw this on Google, and I spoke with the guys, and
Speaker 2: I think it's cool. I'm not sure about what kind of support you think you're gonna get?
Speaker 2: If you bring that energy to any meeting with anyone, certainly with your spot, what kind of what kind of feedback do you think you're gonna get?
Speaker 2: If you're excited about something, you need to come with excitement.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying you need to turn into a QVC,
Speaker 2: you know, salesperson,
Speaker 2: but you need to come with passion for your future.
Speaker 2: Wow. I found this thing. I think it can be amazing.
Speaker 2: Here's why, and you should know why.
Speaker 2: You should definitely know why. You should be able to articulate why you care about this, why you care about the opportunity,
Speaker 2: and then ask for advice.
Speaker 2: I really wanna do it.
Speaker 2: What do you think?
Speaker 2: Or I really wanna do it. Is there anything
Speaker 2: that would prevent
Speaker 2: that you think I, would prevent you from doing this, from being successful?
Speaker 2: And see if you get by.
Speaker 2: So coming in with the right energy.
Speaker 2: Some people have that conversation of very like, like, we spend like an hour or multiple hours with you on a Zoom to figure out who you are,
Speaker 2: who you are, who you want to be, what you are, what's your background. And then they take that and we know what we're doing, Meaning, we talk to you, we learn, we've seen hundreds like you. And then that conversation converts into a four minute kitchen
Speaker 2: conversation with your spouse
Speaker 2: and yours and and and
Speaker 2: like I said earlier,
Speaker 2: you're not a trained,
Speaker 2: you know, salesperson,
Speaker 2: which that is to say,
Speaker 2: you're not trained
Speaker 2: at sharing and getting buy in for your vision.
Speaker 2: So we spend a good amount of time, and then you go to the spouse with
Speaker 2: low energy, and you're kinda sidecarring it.
Speaker 2: And what kind of support do you think you're gonna get?
Speaker 2: So not giving you the right respect and attention
Speaker 2: for yourself and for your spouse to have a serious conversation
Speaker 2: with the right energy,
Speaker 2: energetic
Speaker 2: with the vision, assuming you wanna do it. If you don't wanna do it, don't bother.
Speaker 2: Don't waste your spouse's time.
Speaker 2: Right? This entire context is you wanna do it. If you don't wanna do it, definitely don't do it. But if you wanna do it, do it in a way that you get support that you get support for yourself and you get support from response.
Speaker 2: So that's another one. And I would say last one is focusing on that cost element,
Speaker 2: which is to say the technicality
Speaker 2: of the money and time and so on, because all of that is temporary and money you can always make and time is gonna pass anyway.
Speaker 2: So if you introduce
Speaker 2: the conversation
Speaker 2: through the costs,
Speaker 2: some personas, it might work.
Speaker 2: Some
Speaker 2: rare.
Speaker 2: It's probably
Speaker 2: right to look at the vision. Now last comment because I just had it with a couple of people.
Speaker 2: One, this is a business expense.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter if you do it with us as a program, CTOx. Like, meaning, all the things you invest in building your fractional CTO practice are business expense. If it's a LinkedIn subscription,
Speaker 2: you know, cold email,
Speaker 2: books, whatever,
Speaker 2: are you gonna go to your spouse because you just bought tickets to a conference?
Speaker 2: Because some people, they tell me this is a huge life decision. I'm like, okay. Get it.
Speaker 2: And
Speaker 2: this is a business decision.
Speaker 2: Besides being a life decision, of course, if somebody's gonna quit and do this, that's that's different. Now we're not talking about the money. We're talking about the life path conversation.
Speaker 2: Great conversation. Definitely have that. But if money is your number one objection, you need to recognize it's a business expense. Are you really gonna build up this business and asking your spouse unless she's literally your business partner in this or he's your business partner in this? About going to a conference or buying a subscription?
Speaker 2: Probably not.
Speaker 2: And that's important.
Speaker 2: And that's not
Speaker 2: to for people listening for me to decouple your spouse on the decision making process, but it's to frame the expense in the right way in your mind first
Speaker 2: first. Because I spoke with people, and then when they talk about their investments, they're like, yeah. They bought a $100,000
Speaker 2: worth of Bitcoin without asking their spouse.
Speaker 2: Or they just sold $50,000 of Nvidia without asking their spouse. I'm like, that that actually seems like something you should ask or at least inform.
Speaker 2: Right? As opposed to you saying, I'm gonna do this training that's gonna change my life. I'm gonna take on this new occupation that's gonna take change my life. Right? It doesn't matter how you get it done,
Speaker 2: which is really the this insight
Speaker 2: around making sure you frame around
Speaker 2: the vision and not the cost first and recognize the cost for what it is.
Speaker 2: The number is a thing you spend to buy. So the conversation is about what you're buying.
Speaker 2: If that's very clear, the cost is a nonissue
Speaker 2: for you or for your spouse.
Speaker 1: It occurs to me that the spouse conversation is a proxy for the conversation you have with yourself
Speaker 1: on what you really want and what you're willing to do to get it. That's right.
Speaker 2: It is the it is it it is actually the only conversation.
Speaker 2: The only conversation is with yourself. If that is nailed down
Speaker 2: like, if if you're not in a relationship
Speaker 2: where your spouse wants the best for you, you know, we we can find you other podcasts to listen to. It's probably something you should cater to. It's probably something you should cater to. But the working assumption is again, doesn't matter if you have a one relationship or a 10 relationship.
Speaker 2: The relationship is there because somebody else wants you to win.
Speaker 2: They want you to win. They want you to feel good. Who would if they don't want you to feel good, why are you in a relationship? Right? And if they want you to feel good, now we can argue on how good.
Speaker 2: So if your vision is clear and you yourself have that conversation to the point that you understand why you're even doing this and how exciting the opportunity is to get the freedom of time to do whatever you want and not be in standing meetings, to get the freedom of money, to buy a tiny house or to buy a mansion, whatever money means to you. Have the freedom of purpose, deciding what you're working on every day and every week. And finally, the freedom of relationship, deciding which humans get to be in your life.
Speaker 2: Because that's this pathway.
Speaker 2: That's the pathway of entrepreneurship
Speaker 2: and certainly
Speaker 2: as a fractional CTO. If that's well crystallized to the point that courage is up,
Speaker 2: then you're good.
Speaker 2: The spousal conversation then becomes a supporting conversation
Speaker 2: of how can we do this and not if
Speaker 2: I should do this,
Speaker 2: which is, I guess, the the the important frame.
Speaker 2: The spouse like, we're we're professional consultants in our business.
Speaker 2: If you wanna know if to be a fractional CTO and what it means, ask us,
Speaker 2: unless your spouse happens to be a great fractional CTO.
Speaker 2: So your spouse's ability to give you professional advice
Speaker 2: on the career path of fractional CTO is highly limited,
Speaker 2: most likely nonexistent.
Speaker 2: So the conversation can't be a consulting conversation
Speaker 2: about the path. The conversation should be about your life.
Speaker 2: Where do you wanna go? How do you wanna go? How do you wanna show up? What kind of energy do you want? What are you trying to achieve?
Speaker 2: And then is the spouse gonna support you in it and help you figure it out?
Speaker 2: But the spouse is not there
Speaker 2: as a replacement to tell you if this is
Speaker 2: a good path or a bad path professionally.
Speaker 2: You can certainly describe what you wanna do. And I can give, by the way, a hard example, counterexample.
Speaker 2: Years ago,
Speaker 2: we wanted to buy a house. We wanted to do, like, a mortgage on a house. And I'm an entrepreneur. And if you go into entrepreneurship, you learn. Funny enough, it's harder for entrepreneurs to get a mortgage than people with a w two.
Speaker 2: Because underwriters want, you know, two pay stubs, and they want two pay stubs from a company you don't own, right, that you're not a partner in because they understand, you know, the finagling that people can do when they own companies.
Speaker 2: And it was timely,
Speaker 2: meaning there was something we wanted to do
Speaker 2: on the market. And I'm like, oh, I need a quote, unquote job,
Speaker 2: Literally.
Speaker 2: And what I did, I went to one of my clients. I'm like, can you pay me a w two?
Speaker 2: Okay. We just do this as a w two. But that was a life decision. My wife and I, like, if I didn't have this pathway of entrepreneurship,
Speaker 2: I would have literally just gotten a job because that was the right thing for the life circumstances at the time.
Speaker 2: And then in other in others, it's the opposite. Well, if we wanna achieve those things, if we wanna get to that level of experience, whatever that is,
Speaker 2: job is not a good idea, because the job is I have to be in the office or I have to be on the meeting every, you know, day for x amount of hours. And it's not gonna give me the time and freedom to do the things that I want to achieve.
Speaker 2: So this is these are all house for the what and having clarity on the what and having clarity on the why
Speaker 2: is real once you have that, go and have the conversation with your spouse because the spouse, again, most likely
Speaker 2: not a professional fractional CTO and can opine
Speaker 2: on the value of that career.
Speaker 2: But she if you clarify your vision, she can opine
Speaker 2: on the value of that vision
Speaker 2: for you and
Speaker 2: for both of you as a unit.
Speaker 1: Beautiful.
Speaker 1: Last question.
Speaker 1: If
Speaker 1: someone's listening to this in their car or on the plane right now and they know they need to have this conversation
Speaker 1: tonight
Speaker 1: with their spouse,
Speaker 1: what's the one thing you would advise them to reflect or decide on before that conversation?
Speaker 2: I would say two things. By far, the vision.
Speaker 2: What's your vision?
Speaker 2: How do you want your day to be? How do you want your week to be? How do you want your month to be, your quarter to be, your year to be, your decade to be? Your vision. What are you feeling? What are you experiencing?
Speaker 2: What are the choices that you're making? What are choices you're able to make?
Speaker 2: Vision is the thing. The bigger the vision, courage can show up. Fears go down. They don't go away.
Speaker 2: And you can be primed for action. So vision by far. Second, as a as a tactical advice
Speaker 2: for the spouse conversation,
Speaker 2: Connect
Speaker 2: first.
Speaker 2: Connect first.
Speaker 2: Even with us, when Marissa and I start a meeting, usually, at some point, I love you.
Speaker 2: I miss you.
Speaker 2: And, yes, this is a business for everybody listening. I know you don't hear that in your big corporate job.
Speaker 2: And we do that because we wanna connect with each other first.
Speaker 2: Heart time. We're doing we're doing life together.
Speaker 2: So don't forget you're doing life with your spouse.
Speaker 2: Connect
Speaker 2: first. You you probably I hope you're super excited to talk about your vision. You should be. It's your
Speaker 2: vision. You can have an amazing life.
Speaker 2: So get that.
Speaker 2: But coming into the call, connect,
Speaker 2: relate.
Speaker 2: Be honest,
Speaker 2: be direct.
Speaker 2: Say I love you. Say I'm thinking a lot about you. I'm thinking a lot about this. Here's what's on my mind.
Speaker 2: Here's what I feel about it. And then lay it out.
Speaker 2: This is what I think is possible for me.
Speaker 2: Can I have your support?
Speaker 2: How can I have your support?
Speaker 2: Right? Ask for advice on your mission.
Speaker 2: She wouldn't be able he wouldn't be able
Speaker 2: to give you technical
Speaker 2: insights
Speaker 2: about this pathway,
Speaker 2: again, unless they happen to be a fractional CTO. In which case, we probably don't even need that conversation.
Speaker 2: They probably bought in.
Speaker 2: But connect,
Speaker 2: clarify your vision,
Speaker 2: ask for help.
Speaker 2: If you wanna do this, that's the premise of you having the conversation. Why are you talking to your spouse? Because you wanna do it.
Speaker 2: Otherwise, you don't need to talk to your spouse. No talk to anyone. You don't need to talk to yourself.
Speaker 2: Stop.
Speaker 2: So if you're talking to your spouse, it's because you wanna do it.
Speaker 2: So connect,
Speaker 2: share the vision,
Speaker 2: ask for help,
Speaker 2: and step off the ledge.
Speaker 1: That's it, and that's all.
Speaker 1: If this episode hit close to home, share it with someone you know who's been quietly thinking about going fractional.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the right conversation
Speaker 1: starts with the right resource.
Speaker 1: Lior, as always, this was a banger. Can't wait to record with you again soon. See you next time. See you.