What Marriage Taught Me About Leadership | 691

The Myth of the Self-Sufficient Leader [0:02]

Today we are digging into our marriage, into our businesses, into our life.

And there is a myth out there that strong leaders are self-sufficient — that needing a spouse, being changed by a spouse, having a spouse speak into their life or affect them, is weakness.

And I am here to tell you that that is absolute bunk. That is not truth.

Well, depending upon your spouse. Depending upon the kind of spouse you have.

If you have a spouse that rips your spine out every day and is very controlling, then there's probably gonna be an issue. That's not what we're talking about today.

What we're talking about is our relationship, our ability to speak into each other's lives, your ability to speak into my life.

And yeah, we're gonna have questions that we're gonna tackle. So yeah, we got a bunch of questions that we're gonna dig in on.

We're gonna be raw and real. (x2)

Okay.

I think we dive into some really fun questions and I'm gonna pull them out. By definition of fun.

While you're doing that, I'm gonna pull out my Heather LoCurto Healthy Without Hype water bottle.

What I Struggle With, and Why Truckee Is Our Reset [2:53]

Is there a leadership principle that you teach that you're bad at practicing in your own marriage? Inquiring minds want to know.

Is there a lesson that I teach that I'm bad at in my own marriage? I don't — nothing comes to mind as far as our marriage. You could probably answer that better than I could.

I think in my personal life — our personal lives — one of the things I struggle with that I teach is stopping.

You don't need to be somebody who runs 24/7 and hustles. I'm definitely not a hustle-culture person, I'm against that. I don't feel like I struggle with that in our personal life.

But I feel like I struggle with stopping — in creating and building.

With that being said, we do stop. We do shut down. That is one of our major things — at the end of the day, we're stopping, we're spending time together as a family.

I agree. I think that's something you teach — that there's gotta be work-life balance, right? And it's very important.

But sometimes I think it's hard for you to shut it off, because you'll be walking the property or get off a coaching call and there's all these ideas running, and it's hard for you to shut that off.

Yeah. I think we both can struggle there, right? You hit creative the moment you give me an idea — I'm like, "Well, we could do this, this, this," aesthetically.

Is there anything I teach that I don't do in our marriage? Hit it if there is — be honest.

No. Nothing comes to mind. No.

I would say the turning off is the one that came to mind when I thought of this question. And it's important to say that we do totally turn off.

It's not that — I used to run till nine, ten o'clock at night every single day, traveling around the country. That used to be a constant, and it does not exist anymore.

But we do shut down, and at that point we stop focusing, or we try to. You and I might still get into some good conversations. But yeah, I think that answers it — the work-life balance.

I mean, we're here on vacation. What are we doing? Why are we recording a podcast? We're working on vacation.

We're working on vacation, but there is a balance, and I think there have been questions that people wanna know — about us, about our marriage. Is it possible? Is there actually a balance when you're running a business?

And why are we out here right now? We do need a little respite, and this is our place.

This is where we come in the summertime — we hike — and in the wintertime we come here and ski, and it just gives us that. This is Truckee, my hometown, up in Lake Tahoe. This is where I grew up.

This is such a life-giving place. This is breath of life for us. When we get off the airplane and that door opens and we breathe the air, it's just a different thing for us.

But we're here now because we've been running, we've had a lot going on, and we had to force in a vacation, because there are times that we don't.

Yeah. And if we don't do this — so two great aspects. One, we have a business that completely runs by itself.

We can leave for a week, two weeks if we wanted to, longer. We came up here once and spent an incredible amount of time — we did a whole month.

It was a work vacation, if you will. I spent an incredible amount of time riding.

But the important thing is that we have a business where we're not stressed out. We haven't had any interruptions, any problems, any issues. When we get back, there won't be.

And that's the key. That's one of the reasons why we wanted to shoot this episode today — to say we're able to leave the business and actually have a time.

We brought our youngest daughter up here. Our oldest is actually gonna join us in a few hours with her husband, and it's something that we can do. So that's why we're here.

Behind the Curtain: What Fans Don't Know [7:39]

Hey, what is something about me that people who only know me from the podcast would never guess?

Gosh, there's seventeen thousand things probably.

That I fix hair. Yes.

Gosh, that if you only listen to the podcast, you wouldn't know.

Well, I don't think you talk about racing very much. I used to race Formula cars — not Formula One, which people mix up all the time. No, Formula Enterprise.

But I don't know if people on the podcast know how much you love farming.

I don't think you talk about it a whole lot, but the farming aspect that you do — I think it brings life to you in a sense. It's also the livestock aspect. The creative side.

I don't do gardening, but the livestock — working the pastures, growing, doing the right regenerative stuff.

It's the regenerative aspect that you've really dug into. We are literally here — and this is a funny thing — we fly out here and one of the things we do is go to one of the most popular health food stores and load up.

We don't spend a lot of time going out to restaurants because we get sick. It's horrible, it's not good.

We leave the farm where we're raising our own chicken, lamb, beef, dairy — and we forget what it's like.

We load up on some chicken and steaks, and then the first night we cook the chicken and start eating it, and it's like, "This is what this tastes like." It is terrible. I forget what it is.

And I think that's what I love. So that is a great point — I think there are some personal sides of you that people don't get to see.

Creating something super healthy that people get to enjoy. The farm clients that have told us about healing their guts and healing their kids' guts. I think that's definitely something I don't really talk about.

Your love for wine, too — now that we have a regenerative farm, you're looking at the land in a completely different way, and looking at the production of wine. Is that something we can do?

Yeah. Is that something we can get to at some point? Yeah, I love it.

Setting the Reality: Accountability and the Season That Almost Wore Us Out [12:29]

What's something your wife has called you out on that you needed to hear but didn't want to?

Setting your reality. I can go back to a time years ago where I said something — "setting your reality" is a term that we use.

It's when you say something about somebody that's not necessarily true. Like, "You're wearing a blue shirt today," when obviously you're not. It doesn't mean you're intentionally lying, although many times people will do that.

But I remember — I said something, and your eyes went huge. My wife says she gets Next Level Life'd to every day — I do get Next Level Life'd to every day, which is our personal event.

You all listen to all the coaching on the podcast and everywhere else. I get the coaching all the time — I should be an expert. You should be an expert at this, and you love it, don't you?

I remember saying something, and your eyes got huge, and you went, "You just set my reality — don't set my reality." And I went, "I did just do it."

You never do it — I mean, I hadn't realized it. And it was one of those things where I went, "My gosh, I did just do that. I'm so sorry."

So outside of that, I think the cool part about our marriage is that I can call you out on that, because you teach it. You can easily go, "Yep, that's what I did."

That is a tough thing for people, I think, to understand — I'm very quick, if I get called out on something. My process is, "Is that truth?"

Because I've had an entire life of people telling me things about me that are not true. So when I do get called out, my first thought is, "Is that truth?" And if it's truth, I'm very quick to take responsibility — "You're right, I'm sorry." Which has shocked people.

Heather, has there been a season where the business took more from our marriage than it should have? And if so, what did that look like?

I would say this most recent season — when we lost our farmhand in January and made the call to not bring anyone else on.

Because we did not realize — it's one thing coaching somebody side by side, you can see mistakes, but we did not realize how much stuff had gotten messed up. So we took on the farming, in addition to everything else we were doing.

And so for six months it was nonstop — it was simplifying, six a.m. in the morning to nine o'clock at night. We were just still running and gunning, and I think it was exhausting.

It also got us in a heck of a lot better shape, which was a good aspect. But it was exhausting, and it did make us go — we can't keep this pace. Something has to change, and we need a vacation and some respite.

So when I think of that question, I go back to the very first time years ago, when you looked at me and said, "We're leaving and we're going on vacation. I need four days — we're gonna make a four-day weekend."

And I remember being in this place of going, "Hey, listen —" and you said we're doing it in two weeks.

Here's what he does — he's like, "Yeah, but there's all these things — just let me get through them and then we'll take a vacation. Give me two months." I'm like, no. Because it never stopped, there was no discussion.

It never stops. There was no — we're leaving in two weeks for four days. And I'm like, but why does it have to be in two weeks?

And she's like, "Because I have to go — we've got to go. It's nobody else, we're not taking anybody else. It's just you and I." Back to — sometimes it's hard for him to shut down.

And my logic was going, "But you're gonna be de-stressed, and I'm gonna come back to stress that's not gonna be done for about two months." And she's like, "I don't care, we're going — this is when we're going."

"You're not gonna have a wife. My mom's gonna watch Reina — we could go." And I was like, "Well, okay, whatever, all right."

We went, and please hear this — this is one of the most amazing times in our marriage, because I found my wife. I found the woman that I married. We went, and the gal that I married came out.

Not the one that had been stressed and overloaded with things going on. And that was a less stressful time for us back then, a considerably less stressful time. But my wife, the gal that I married, showed up.

And I didn't realize that there was a different version. I didn't realize that so much of you had been head-down so long — tamped down.

And it was like, oh my gosh — okay. I literally have chills thinking about this. I literally said, "Next time you feel this, we're going — it doesn't matter, we're going. I don't want to lose this." And it was just super powerful for our marriage.

What Marriage Has Taught Me About Leadership [16:14]

What's a leadership lesson your marriage has taught you that no client, coach, or book ever could?

So I'm gonna translate this into leadership. I grew up in a narcissistic family — I was what was called the scapegoat, the one that was dumped on.

I've struggled in my early years with having controlling people in my life, and had to work my way out of that so I could teach and go from there.

I have always been a high altruist. I love people, I develop people, I care about people — I want to remove the pain from people's lives. So that has been my focus, and I believe God's calling for me is to help as many people get to a better place.

And I would say one of the best things that I've learned from you is you've taught me a different aspect of love.

I've been able to just watch you love in ways that I hadn't been taught, I hadn't seen. And I think that was super powerful for me.

So that not only helped me love people the way I watch you — this gentleness, this aspect of your heart that's stunning — but being able to translate that into how do I help people love other people well? How do I help people make other people more important than themselves?

So that's been one of the most powerful things, I think, for me. Thanks, babe. Getting all smooshy here.

All right, Heather — what do you wish more people understood about being married to someone in the public eye?

Maybe my answer, if I were you, would be — you don't focus on being in the public. Yeah, I don't think it's something we focus on.

It's not even something we look at. Our focus isn't on celebrity or fame — that is a negative for us. Our focus is being in the public eye by helping people.

We have to be in the public eye so that we can attract the people that need the help, so that we can help them. It's not that we want to be in the public eye because of fame and fortune — no desire for that.

No, I mean, we wouldn't mind more fortune. More fame? I don't want more fame — that's never a desire. Never desired. Thank you.

Alright — how does your faith show up in the hard moments? Not the highlight reel version, but the real one.

I think I understand that things can be messy, and there's a messy middle to everything that God is doing.

I think our faith has just been strengthened by putting Him first — that when we hit tough times and when we are heads-down, transition can't happen without that messy middle. And it's okay.

It's okay to be messy. It's okay to not get it right. It's okay to stumble through the hard times. It doesn't have to be perfect. And I'm okay with that.

I think when I think of that question, I think of how we spend a lot of time talking through God using the hard times to grow us and make us better.

Some of the things one of us will usually say, when we're in the middle of a hard time, is, "Okay, what's God trying to teach us? What should we learn from this? How should we apply this?"

And it doesn't mean that we don't have our moments. It doesn't mean that we aren't kicking and screaming sometimes in the process.

We've had one very recently that was a very difficult thing for us to walk through. And both of us just experiencing this stress of — for the love — why?

And I think we both sat there, and I know you had a horrible night of sleep, and so did I, but you really did. And we got up, and it's like, "Hey, listen, we're gonna put all our faith in God. We're trusting what God's gonna do."

And a few days later we get a phenomenal answer that we weren't expecting — an answer of prayer.

It's just — that's how God operates, right? It's the unexpected, it's the little moment.

When we're so focused on it being perfect, or the white-picket-fence, Instagram-real-worthy version, we miss the moments of growth and strengthening in our marriage and in life.

This is something that put pressure back on us immensely. And the answer is not relieving that pressure — we still have to relieve that pressure.

But it brought a different answer that's going to relieve a whole lot of other pressure that's been on us — believing that we're following what God is guiding us to, in the future of our businesses and things like that.

For me, faith is the trusting and believing in the things unseen, right? We see a problem in front of us, and we can choose our choices and consequences.

We can choose to be victims, we can choose to be mad, we can choose to be sad, or we can choose to trust in God.

We chose to trust in God — it didn't change the heaviness or the sickness in our stomachs, but giving it over did. That removed it — okay, this is what we do, we just move forward, we just move on from here. So I think that's a powerful one.

If someone listening is great at leading their team but struggling to lead well at home, what's the one thing you'd tell them?

There's not one thing — that's a ridiculous question. There are so many things, and I overdo this all the time. There's seventeen things I would tell somebody, but I'm not gonna do that — I'm gonna go for the one thing.

The one thing you have to understand, the one thing you have to know, is your home life is way more important than your business.

Gosh, I'm gonna get all — stop, don't you start crying on me today.

You're never going to get to heaven and God's gonna go, "Well done on your business, that was amazing. I'm so blown away with the amount of hours you spent and the profit that you created — you're incredible." He's not gonna do that.

But I do believe He's gonna ask us what we did with what He gave us. And so for me, I love our businesses. I enjoy our businesses. They're exactly what we love, right?

But just like we say on the show — business is what you do, it's not who you are. I am way more a husband than I am a CEO.

Gosh, I hope so. I'm way more a father — as our little one is sitting off to the side here, our youngest — I'm way more a father than I am a CEO.

If you look at Ephesians 4, 5, and 6, God lays out the importance of relationships. And anybody who's been through Next Level Life or the STRAT Plan sees this on my board — it's up in the corner. We call it the relationship circles.

Number one is that relationship with God. God has to be the most important thing, and God's the most important thing to us individually and as a couple.

But the next most important thing is your spouse. And you are the most important human being to me on the planet. I don't think anybody who even knows me thinks otherwise — I think everybody would agree, there's no doubt about that.

I can't imagine anybody would think otherwise. And then family, the kids, after that. And then it goes on to work after that.

So I think the thing to understand is I believe our businesses are blessed a thousand times more by my focus — our focus, if I'm speaking about me — on the home life and making sure that our marriage is good.

We're here. We're here to rejuvenate. We're here to replenish — as you say, respite — and it's life-giving, and then we're able to go back and hammer the things we're working through.

So I would say: taking care of, putting God first, you second — kids third, work fourth — is the right priority.

And most people have work as number one, and God's over here somewhere, and the spouse is down here, and the kids are more important than the spouse sometimes. And I think that's just a colossal mistake.

Powerful. Powerful.

Hey, I hope you liked us answering these questions for you. If you have questions for Chris, drop a comment below or go to his Instagram at ChrisLoCurto and send him a message.

He does read them, I promise you. I make sure of it — our VP of content. So yes, absolutely.

Well, any last words that you would like to say before we sign off and go for a hike?

I think — yes, I think you know, just recognize a business is a tool. We want everybody to succeed. We want you to be great leaders for a reason.

We want you to be able to build teams and accountability and communication and create revenue and profit. And we want you to win greatly in those areas, but we want that to be the tool.

We don't want that to be the most important thing in your life. We want it to be something that you use to bless others, to bless your family — something that you get to point back to God at all the time and say, "Thank you, Lord, that I get to do this."

We praise God — even sitting here doing this, we praise God that for anybody who watches this and that this impacts your life, we praise God that we get to do this. So that is what I would love for you to hear.

And as always, take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life, and join us on the next episode. See you guys.