[LEXIE LEE] The Married Entrepreneurs Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Bomb Mom and Grow A Group Practice, go to www.practiceofthepractice.com/network. [RON LEE] Welcome to the Married Entrepreneurs Podcast. This is Ron Lee [LEXIE] I am Lexie Lee. [RON] We are professional counselors and serial entrepreneurs who are married [LEXIE] To each other. [RON] Thank you for joining us as we explore the business of life and the life of business. [LEXIE] Today we have fellow podcasters, Billy and Brandy Eldridge. Welcome guys. [BILLY ELDRIDGE] Thanks for having us. [BRANDY ELDRIDGE] We’re excited. Good to be here. [LEXIE] So tell us a little bit about you all. [BILLY] All right. I’m Billy Eldridge. I’m a licensed professional counselor in East Texas, have a private practice that I started with a business partner and my wife. That’s a growing business that we’re trying to raise up and we’re also podcasters and we’re pretty involved in our community. I serve on some boards, Brandy serves on a school board, and I’ll let her tell you what she does in the world. [BRANDY] Yes, and I am a newly consulting and mom of three. That’s about it right now. [BILLY] Former executive director of a nonprofit and current doctoral student finishing and graduating in — [LEXIE] In May. [BILLY] She didn’t brag on herself, but I’m going to do it [RON] I think she left some stuff off the table, didn’t she? [BILLY] Yes, at the university of Southern California, which as a young girl, she always wanted to attend. Now she’s getting to at this last half of, the second half of life meeting goals. [BRANDY] Thank you, Billy Eldridge. I feel very [BILLY] I’m proud of her. I’m a gloating husband over here [RON] You should be. What made you guys start podcasting together? [BILLY] Well, we were at a conference in Colorado with an enthusiastic business consultant, podcaster, and we’d always tossed around the ideas, but didn’t have the framework for it and didn’t know how to put it out. Brandy actually went to a breakout session some years ago and came up with a whole idea and pretty much said, we’re going to do this and move past our fear. [BRANDY] Well, I really wanted Billy to do it because I think he’s just, I call him my little Buddha. He’s just got this good wisdom that he imparts to people and the way he speaks to people. I’m a little more direct. So I really wanted him to do it. I was like, I’ll just produce it. I’ll be the background. I’ll get the guest and everything set up. He’s like, no, I’m not doing it by myself. I don’t want to do it by myself. So we had to spin it. That’s where Beta Male Revolution came from. [BILLY] I’ve always been that type of personality, I’m not a type a assertive, like I said, I’m always a good wing person. I’m not a great CEO, but I do great in the other positions, organizational structure. But I always, have seen this pattern in my life. I pair myself with strong people who have strengths that I don’t, and I really feel like I knocked it out of the park with my wife, because I married a very smart, intelligent person. [BRANDY] I’m getting all of it today. [BILLY] That can be challenging at times. It can pose its own challenges, but I couldn’t see myself doing it without her. So we have this podcast we’re trying to still figure out a couple of years in and thousands of downloads and we’re just waiting around in the dark trying to figure out what we’re doing, but it’s a labor of love. [LEXIE] Can you speak to what has been some of the biggest challenges? [BILLY] So the podcast on the podcast, Beta Male Revolution started out, it’s a play on words, the beta male, because she always called me her beta mail because I’m this softer sensitive guy. It’s got a bad rap in the world. It’s like weak or something like that. So we try to, we wanted to do a reclaiming of that name and talk about struggles where she’s this assertive alpha type person, type A and I’m more easygoing. I’m a Rogerian type, person-centered therapist, touchy, feely, emotional and she’s more cut and dry. So the podcast itself has brought out some probably of our biggest arguments in need to control things in certain ways and so it’s really been an exercise in learning to work together and it has been very dark and difficult on some days. You can go more into that if you want us to. [LEXIE] I do, because one of the questions that I had was how frequently in working on the podcast, do you find that there’s a fight because, just to be real with us, we find that, just about every time we sit down to record, there is some tension, some friction. How about you all? [BRANDY] 100%, especially in the beginning. I think later on, we’ve been doing this for two years now so I think later on probably a year and a half into it, we may be found our groove, but in the beginning, absolutely, roles weren’t really defined. We didn’t have a structure set up, we had differences of opinions and then, and on our podcast, you will hear us fight, like full on fight. Now I think we resolve them a lot quicker and we understand that, I think it’s brought out some of our worst fights, but then some of our best brainstorming and problem solving. But yes, almost every time, like just a minute ago I set this up and he was like, why is it sitting up like this? I’m like, because that’s how we did it last time. No, we didn’t. We didn’t do it this way. Yes, we did. Just trust the process. We did it last time. Breathe. It’s going to be okay. Then he was like, oh yes, yes, we did. How’s this going to work? Then me dropping the ball last week, we were supposed to meet and Billy was like, hey, did you ever follow up with that? I’m like, yes, I followed up with it. I’m a grown up. I know how to follow up with stuff. Then he was like, so did you get the link? No, I didn’t get the link because I didn’t follow up with it. So it is constantly. [BILLY] If people don’t, podcasts that may be like a, but in any way, you try to work together and we’ve realized it goes deeper. I mean, we may be arguing about the podcast, but it’s not about the podcast. I mean, we can get in here in front of a mic and there’s been times where we’ve been smiling and talking to people, but there is this tension in the air. We’ve tried to get more real and vulnerable and open about that because that’s the work we want to do in the world and that brings out a certain I don’t know, it can get really uncomfortable. But I think when we get to those uncomfortable places, we really can get down to what’s really going on because 9 times out of 10, it’s got a whole lot more to do with than just the podcast. There’s something else going on. So in working together, whether it’s the podcast, yard work, whatever we’re trying to do together, raise kids, it brings out these issues that become opportunities for things for us to look at on things we need to work [BRANDY] Lots of opportunities, [BILLY] Lots of opportunities, a whole lot of them, more than we would like to toss. [LEXIE] That’s the benefit of long-term marriage. If you’re going to be married 50 years, I’ll often say with clients that if you knew before you were going to get married that the worst part or better or worse was going to be 25% of the time, would you still do it? The answer for most people is yes. 25% of the time I can handle that. If you’re married for 50 years, that means it’s 12 and a half years of worse. [RON] I’m not sure I love — [LEXIE] That’s too much in a row. [BRANDY] That’s about right. I think we have to constantly remind each other that we’re on the same team. A thing that we have to say is hey, I’m on your team. I’m on your side, because we tend to fight against each other and it’s like these opposing ideas or beliefs and a lot of time it’s just ego and selfishness. Then we have to remind each other I’m on your team. I’m with you. I’m not trying to fight against you. I’m with you. So how can we do this that we’re on the same side. We’re not on opposing teams. When we realize like, okay, that’s right, I’ve got your back. We want to make whatever this is work. We’re on the same team. So stop fighting me like I’m not on your team. When we realize that and we take a step back and we go, okay, not take ourselves so seriously, we tend to resolve the issues a lot quicker. [BILLY] What I can even say, we changed the physical space. I know some people will just be listening, but we’re on the same side today in front of the mic. I mean we used to be on opposing sides and we had the set up different but I think that physically set up a space where it was like my point, her point and we realized we want this to be a thing we do together. We create something that we care about and it couldn’t just be about trying to create this thing that we monetize in the world and make lots of money out of. It has to be something we love and if it happens to do that great. [LEXIE] Well, and I love that you brought in the setting up the environment. We are couples’ therapists and we often talk about if you’re going to have an important discussion that setting up the environment is important, that proximity to each other, if you’re in a relaxed atmosphere. The closer you are together, probably the more calm you’re going to feel with each other. When you say one thing and you’re across the room from each other, it sounds one way and if you say the exact same thing in the exact same tone, but you’re side by side, it’s going to feel very different. So I love that you all set that up. I wonder, have you all read the book, The War of Art by Steven Pressfield? [BILLY] Have not, great book. We’ll put it on the list. [LEXIE] Yes. Highly recommend it. It’s a book all about resistance, the resistance that comes up when you’re trying to create art. So for us, I think part of, yes, there’s other stuff that’s going on when we fight and sometimes it’s just that creative process of wanting to do something that is good and the stress of that. When we have different viewpoints on how that’s going to be, it’s that resistance I think, popping up. [BRANDY] Oh, I think you’re exactly right. When Billy was saying sometimes it’s about the deeper things. Sometimes it’s not, sometimes it’s just about two people having an opinion about one certain thing and we both see it differently and think it’ll work. A lot of times that is just what it is. I think mine’s right and you think yours is right and we have to come to some compromise for the better of the team. When we look at it like that I usually win, usually compromise. [BILLY] There’s no winning. We’re on the same team. We just talked about. [BRANDY] No, I’m joking. I’m joking. I think it is — [BILLY] She usually, if there is a winner [BRANDY] No, I’m just saying that a lot of times is just a compromise and like, who’s going to be, okay, let’s try it your way. Let’s try it my way. Let’s see how it goes. He’s usually the nicer guy about it. That’s all it is. [BILLY] It probably would’ve been easier not to do something like this together, but I don’t think we would’ve been better in the way we are today two years later. [RON] So you see this as improving your relationship? [BRANDY] Oh, for sure. [BILLY] Absolutely. I think because we allowed it to, and it took a lot of surrender and humility because I came in even with a name of I’m this soft, easy going guy. I’m a beta male, I’m in touch with my feelings. Then I realize I am controlling and micromanaging and get highly irritable when things don’t go my way. So it brought this other side out in me that I had to begin to look at, that I had put this persona out in the world that wasn’t matching up with reality. I had some underlying stuff going on that I had yet to look at and had we not done this, I don’t think we would’ve gotten the opportunity to grow as a couple. We probably would’ve been all right but we wouldn’t have been as good. So I’m grateful for it, today. Check with me in a week. [LEXIE] So when you think about how you all react differently outside of the podcast room, can you share a little bit more of how that has changed your relationship? [BRANDY] I think for me it is knowing where each other’s stress levels are. So before I quit my job, I was in school full-time, mom-ing full-time and working as an executive director of a nonprofit full-time and Billy had a private practice. My stress level was, I mean, it was just stressed all the time. So when he would come in with a slightest critique on something or ask of something it was just more than I could handle at that point. So I knew like I got to quit something, I got to stop something or I’m going to have a nervous breakdown. So anything at that point, and we had the podcast at that point so it was like, anytime he would ask me a question, like, did you get that email? Yes, I got the email, I got the email. What do you … and it was just too much stress. So taking that step back and now recognizing his stress levels where before I couldn’t see a sign in front of me, but knowing when he is at his max that I just need to say, hey what can I take off your plate today or what can I do to help you? And sometimes it’s just listening. So I think understanding each other’s stress levels is really important because you can see the signs. The other day I did something and I snapped at one of the kids and Billy made an offhand comment and I came back to him like, “Hey, when I’m stressed and you see me snapping that, instead of making a passive aggressive comment, come to me and say, hey, what’s going on?” He was like, “You’re right.” He normally does that. He just didn’t at that point. So just being able to say that and him not get offended or upset and go, well, I said, it wasn’t any of that. It was like, hey, you’re right, thanks for bringing that up. I wasn’t paying attention and I didn’t recognize that. Being able to have those conversations now, as opposed to when we like first started the podcast or first became parents even, or first got married, like it’s able to grow and then Billy can come to me, which he often does and I’ll let him speak. But say like, hey, when you asked me that your tone was really sharp with me and I know you didn’t mean that, but that’s how it came across. Then I’m like, I got to soften that. I got to soften it. I’m not in business mode right now. I don’t need to be delegating orders. It’s let me be soft with him. He’s on my team. He’s my person. He’s my lobster. Let me be softer with him and not be so, hey, I need this by five o’clock attitude. I think that’s really helped just knowing each other’s stress levels and triggers and then watching the signs and being perceptive of like each other’s moods at that point. [BILLY] I think, well, it’s been a waking up to certain things. I didn’t realize how much I was resistant to this idea in the beginning, how much emotional labor I poured off on to Brandy, how much she kept up with the kids’ schedules, doctor’s appointments, the way we run the house. I just took that for granted because of the home I grew up in and realizing there wasn’t an equitable distribution. When she asked me to help out and do things, I saw that as a critique on me because of the way I grew up and that I’m bad and I’m not good enough, so I would get reactive. I still do. I’m working through that. I think the mistake I made, because I do this for a living and I went to school and I’ve read a lot of books that somehow it was just going to come natural and easy for me, but it’s really easy for me to identify in other people what they need to do but I am very blind to my own blind spots. I can come home and be like, oh my gosh, I’m doing exactly what I told that guy not to do today two hours ago. Then I have to go to a place of growth and not shame and gosh, I’m a fraud. I’m a phony. I’m no good. Who am I? Who do I think I am? Because that’s just, I have this internal critic that was built in me from a young age. I perceive things as you’re not good enough. You’re not worthy. When it’s just like, hey, I’m asking you to pick up some slack around the house and I don’t have to have this big overarching, emotional reaction. I can self-regulate and say, my wife is just asking for help. She’s not telling me I’m a piece of crap and I’m no good. I don’t know if that answers your question. [LEXIE] It does. I can just say that we can relate often because we are marriage counselors married to each other that people are like, oh you must never fight. We’re like, oh we still fight. We just know what we’re doing wrong. We know the official term to put on it and it’s very difficult to walk your talk. Yes, but I will also say that the beauty of doing the work that we do has made our marriage so much better because we see what happens if we don’t do the work. [RON] One of the biggest things I’ve had to learn while doing the work, I mainly work with men and boys and marriage, I’ll let Lexie handle the women. Women are crazy. She can handle that. It’s mainly, just for me, it’s like when I’m working with a guy it’s like, you have to point the finger back at you. At some point you have to quit pointing the finger back at somebody else going, that’s the problem, that’s the problem, that’s the problem. You have to start pointing the finger back going I’m putting stuff into this mix. I’m putting ingredients into this cake and I’m having to eat the cake. If the cake doesn’t taste good, nah, I may have to think about the ingredients I’m putting into this. I heard you say that. It’s like you’re understanding pointing the finger back going and that’s not fun ever. It’s difficult [BILLY] No. I got a deep dive in a heavy dose of that. Early on prior to my career as a counselor due to some my own dysfunction, my own life, I realized I had a problem with alcoholism and addiction and I got involved in a 12-step program where they really emphasized cleaning your side of the street and staying off the other person’s side of the street and taking personal responsibility for the dysfunction you’ve created. That was such a great gift that although on some days I do poorly, I strive for that goal to stay on my side of the street, take my responsibility, clean up my messes that I create. [BRANDY] I think, yes, I’m going to brag on you, but, maybe not keep the words out. [BILLY] It’s okay. [BRANDY] I think that not everybody has that self-reflective partner and I can say that from Billy’s work, he works a really good program. I’ve learned everything that he’s learned through him by him being such a great example of just self-reflectiveness. He gives off this, this vibe of it’s him, it’s him, but he does so much work every day to stay sober by doing that, being a great example to his family on how to clean your side of the street, how to take it one day at a time and how to give and be a servant. So he’s constantly reflecting and I feel really grateful and lucky as a partner to be able to say things to him and not get that reactive argument from him but, “Yes, let me work on that. Let me take some time and look at my part in that.” That’s an example to our kids and to myself and being able to apologize, like he apologizes really well. He is the first one to come and say, “Look, this is what I did. This is what I saw.” That’s, it’s pretty humbling. [LEXIE] Well, and that is a beautiful example of part of what we call getting curious, not furious. The more we can get curious about what’s going on with ourselves, what’s going on in this moment, what’s going on underneath the surface, that it can change the feel of that conversation instead of getting offended, which is the easy way out. Thank you all for being vulnerable. [BRANDY] Well said. It was better when you said it without the tears and the shaky voice. [LEXIE] I just appreciate you being vulnerable in that. Thank you so much for coming on and telling this about your podcast. Really appreciate that. [RON] What can we expect from the Beta Male? What’s next for you guys? [BILLY] We had like a whole first half and we realized we had overshot our content with what we wanted to talk about with Beta Male. [BRANDY] It should have been a series, not maybe a podcast [BILLY] Yes, and then we wanted to make a shift, but we didn’t want to rebrand and do all of that. So we’re like, we can just build this into what we’re currently doing. We talk about second half of life living, a lot with couples, couples, and individuals and people who’ve had a shift, whether it’s around faith, a crisis in their life, a major event where for the first half of life, they thought one way, they came up against some resistance. They really had to question some things and they found some freedom in shifting into a freer way of living and thinking and really like rock bottom helps that sometimes whether in a relationship or in an addiction or burnout in a job when it gets painful and you know can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again, and you’ve got to make a shift. We love those stories. Like how did you shift? How did you make it out of it? How did you transform and evolve as a human being to what really mattered, family, home, quality over quantity type stuff. So that’s what we’re interviewing people on now around work, faith, relationship, things like that. [RON] Okay. Where can they find out more information about your show? [BILLY] Betamalerevolution.com. We’re also on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok. You can go to all the podcasts, Apple Music, Spotify, and [BRANDY] Anywhere you find your podcast. [BILLY] Yes, you can type in Beta Male Revolution into Google and you’ll get some odd, strange things but if you look for our little beta fish logo click on that and listen in. If it’s for you, we welcome you, if not, we understand that too. We’re just happy to have fellow travelers along this life that are just trying to, they don’t have all the answers, they’re just trying to figure things out [RON] Well, Billy and Brandy, thank you so much for coming onto our show today. We don’t want to take up too much of your time. We’re praying for your guys’ show and the outcome of that that you can reach just a whole bunch of people, start manifesting and changing lives. [BILLY] Yes, absolutely. We want to thank you guys for the work you all are doing and for the opportunity you gave us to come sit down and share a little part of our story. Keep up the good work. It’s so nice seeing a couple working together in the capacity that you guys do. [LEXIE] Thank you guys. Thank you for listening. Time is our most valuable resource and we appreciate that you shared your time listening to us. If you enjoyed our show, please rate us or give us a review. You can share this episode with someone that you think may benefit. You can find more from us at marriedentrepreneurspodcast.com. [RON] This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.