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0:02on you and Ila. Uh you had when your relationship started, it kind of was the priority of business than marriage. Uh and you kind of shifted that to uh marriage over business. >> December 19. >> Do you think should business come before your marriage? Uh, were those three years necessary to evolve past that or would you have found more success in that stage had you done that from the beginning?

0:30>> No idea. Can't replay the game. I know that at that time it we it was kind of one of those recalibration moments. Same as like February. I was like, "This is bad. I want to change this." Um, or rather uh my days are not as I would prefer them to be. I would like to change them. And I feel like there are structural problems so we should change it. Um, and in December of 19, we had a conversation just on the I remember we we went out on our our balcony and I was like, I do not like the way that we're living.

1:03And she was like, I don't either. And I was like, cool. So, let's change. And that was it. We both agreed we're both in the same The one thing that Leila and I have had that's been, call it exceptional luck or whatever you want to call it is that we've always been on the same page. And I I it and it and it it feels like luck in the moment. It feels fortunate. Um because I go into the the conversations and I'm like, I don't know where this is going to go. Um because if she comes back and she's like, I love the way things are, I'd be like, that is a problem. Like, I can't I don't want to keep doing this. And so, we've thankfully been on the same page.

1:38And I think one of the one of the benefits of living our lives so mutually entwined is that we are exposed to the same stimuli. And so, we suffer at the same time typically. And so if one of us is feeling off, the other one typically feels it. And like it's wild. Like Leila and I have a very interesting relationship from a from a partnership perspective because like there are few humans I think that have spent like especially married couples that have spent more time than Leila and I have together. Like from the time we met, we spent two weekends apart.

2:11Like the time we met, well, sorry, excluding the time when I flew out to do the to do the launches. So that was like a 3-we period. Um, but excluding that, from the day we met until now, there's two other weekends that we haven't been together. Two. Two. Which is wild considering how much we travel and all that stuff. Like, it just has there hasn't been that much time. And so, and we also spend like we're in the same building every day working. Um, we see each other, you know, throughout the day. Um, and for a big chunk of those years, we were remote, so we were at home. And so, um, I think it's like the average married couple ends up spending like four or five quality hours together a week, something like that, where they're like not eating, not like dealing with kids, not watching television. Like, there's like there's really not that many hours that they're spending. And so, we have something like 20 or like we have the equivalent of like a 70-year marriage in terms of like time that we've spent together, uh, time on marriage. And uh yeah, I think if I lost Leila, it would be really bad for me. It' be very hard for me. So I would prefer not to lose her.

3:19>> Do you actively have to iterate on the relationship in terms of how do we make this better? >> It's a dichotomy to be managed, you've said in the past, but uh what have been some things that you found out recently that could be useful to other married couples? >> Yeah, I think it it's definitely a dichotomy to be managed. I think I think the thing that has to get managed the most is closeness. And I think that that's one that I don't hear talked about enough. I think Esther Prell talks a little bit about this. She has a book called Mating in Captivity, which I haven't read, but Ila didn't tell me the story. Um, which is how I read half of my well, all my relationship books I've read in that way. [laughter] And uh, and basically the single premise is that in modern society, people spend too much time together uh, but not in the right ways. And so, um, this might sound like it's contradicting what I just said, but it's creating space to be missed. And so, especially in a world where like both people work from home, like they're, you know, together all day, it's like they become siblings.

4:15They become like roommates. They don't like have that mystery. They don't have that chemistry from a romantic perspective. And so because Leila and I can naturally spend so much time together if we so chose, what we manage typically is creating enough distance during the day um and even week to week sometimes to uh create enough space to be drawn together. And I think that like if you've ever I'm sure you have and many people probably have like if you've been away from somebody that you care about for a week or two when you come back you're like oh my god it's so nice to see them. um it's like how do we recreate that in a consistent basis? And so um I think trying to actively push the other person away, not in a not an emotional way, but like physical space um is something that I would say that has been helpful for us and not making that a bad thing. So there's a difference between um wanting to be alone and not wanting to be with someone else. And I think being able to delineate that, like being able to even have that conversation up front, be like, "Hey, I'm going to take three hours and just like listen to this book or I'm going to go for a walk or I'm going to go work out or I'm going to go do whatever." Um, I think creating creating the permission where this is not a thing. This isn't me being upset with you. This is not that I don't love you. This is not that I don't want to be with you. This is like I just need some me time. And being able to kind of give yourself give each other the space to do that I think has been super valuable because sometimes you're like I worked all day and then you're not like oh I want to be married right now. You're like I want to just decompress for a minute and then we can go I'll be like you know emotionally ready to do whatever we want to do or talk about. And um I think just having that I think just having that like making it okay to not hang out all the time is and I think that's it's like if there's been something that's helped Ila and I probably that's probably like one of the biggest ones.

6:06>> When I spoke to Ila last when I was here, I had asked her what's something you noticed about Alex that he doesn't realize about himself. Uh and she wouldn't speak to it because it was your frame. Uh but what is something that Leila helped you realize? my frame. What do you mean? >> It was uh she was like, "I won't speak to what Alex would say." I heard heard. >> Um, what is something that Ila helped you realize about yourself?

6:32>> Yeah. Yeah. Understood. Um, what did she help me realize about myself? >> But what's something she noticed that not a lot of other people had noticed about you? I don't know. I would say that she's helped me develop in a lot of ways. But in terms of like things that I didn't notice about me, I think Leila cuz she she sees the world the same way that I do from the same behaviorist frame. She doesn't talk about as much, but like she sees it the same way. And so she has been like the person who's going to have the biggest influence on who you are is the person who you hold in the highest esteem, who holds the most reinforcers in your life. And hopefully that's your spouse. Um, and so your spouse is going to have a huge influence on your behavior and like how you act and how you kind of mold over time. And so I've had, you know, we've had reciprocal kind of control over one another in terms of shaping and reshaping each other. and she knows what she's doing when she's reinforcing certain activities. Um, and so do I, you know, and so, um, I think that being with Ila, she has encouraged me deliberately and indirectly, uh, to be more patient for sure. I'm so much more patient. Um, so much more like just so much more patient since she's been in my life. Um, I'm less angry than than I was when when we met. Um, I would say I I try to go out of my way more to be kind to others since we met. Um, I would say I I try to be more considerate uh since we met. And these are all behaviors I fundamentally learned from her. And so I would say like I think I think I would say buying a spouse, but I think I think picking a spouse is almost like buying all of the behaviors that you'd like to have in the future from somebody else and basically saying like, man, I got all these rough edges. If I married this person, I'd probably smooth out a little bit. And so I think a lot of it does is like you start here and then you kind of like slowly learn the best from one another.

8:48then I think we've both been better off from being together. Like on the flip side for her, I think she's gotten more aggressive. Um I think she's more direct um since we've been together. I think she's less patient. Um and I think those things have benefited her. And so that's kind of like that's our yin and yang. That's that's worked really well uh for like mutual personal development. >> Real quick, if you're a business owner and you are not growing as fast as you'd like, I'd like to give you a free gift.

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