Michelle Johnson
Are you ready to level up? I'm Michelle Johnson, a business coach, business owner, corporate manager, wife, Mum, and a juggler of all the things. I would love to help you juggle all the things that are important to you. How do you stay calm in control and achieve your goals? Join me in the mindset corner. A feeling like your time is not your own. Maybe it's your mindset. If you'd like some tips on dealing with time better in your life, head to the mindset corner.com forward slash time tips. Hey, welcome back. It's nice to have you here again in the mindset corner. If you're loving the podcast, I would really appreciate if you can subscribe on your podcast app of choice. It really helps other people find the podcast and keeps you in the loop with all the new episodes. Sammy Yeager is the founder of fuel collective and co host of the date forever podcast. She's borderline obsessed with the way that the quality of our relationships impacts the quality of our lives. Sammy uses her unique blend of knowledge on business, relationships, and contribution to work towards creating a better world. Sammy is a huge advocate of the UN Global Goals, and knows that to make a true global progress. It starts with the quality of our relationships. Here's my chat with Sammy, let me know what golden nuggets you got out of this episode on Instagram at the mindset corner. Hey, Sammy, welcome to the mindset corner Podcast. I'm so excited to have you here. I'm such an admirer of your work. And I'm really excited to ask you some questions about what you're doing. And for you to share some of that with our listeners, because I know we've got some common challenges in our lives. And they will definitely get some gold nuggets for me today. So thank you so much for coming on.
Sammy Jaeger
Thank you so much for having me.
Michelle Johnson
So why don't we start? I've told the listeners a little bit about your background and what you've been doing. But could you share just in your own words how you've come to what you're doing now?
Sammy Jaeger
Yeah, so I do a couple of different things. But the thing I'd love to focus on is the business that I have with my beautiful husband, Nathan. So it's called fuel collective. And the intention is that we empower couples to create a really thriving relationship, something that happens by design, and not by default. We were kind of in our like, late 20s. And Nathan, I had already been married for like five years. And it was around the time that we were renewing our vows, which we did in Cuba, super fun. But a whole heap of our mates were going through really horrible breakups, and in some cases divorce with people that they thought with their forever person. And what we kind of realized was that there's not a lot of relationship education that takes place, at school or in while you're at university or anything like that. So if you've been brought up in a home environment, that you're not really that keen on replicating, or you've never really seen a healthy, happy, thriving relationship model to where do you learn that? So yes, and Nathan, I went and did a whole market research, and we really couldn't find very much for, hey, you found your person, you're in a great place, but you want to keep it there. There's quite a bit of stuff for couples who have like the shine has worn off, or it's no longer meeting their expectations. And they're, you know, 510 years in, and it's not working. So there's quite a bit of information for that sort of stage, but not for like, how do you actually build those relationships, skills? What are the things that you, you will benefit from and reap rewards from and dividends from Forever? If you master so we've gone about creating
Michelle Johnson
it. That's awesome. Yeah, we got married at 23 as well, well, Shane's a bit older than me, but I was 23. And now I look back and think, Wow, that was really young. But at the time, I felt totally ready.
Sammy Jaeger
And I echo that. Yeah. But I also we had like some strange kind of like, comments of like, yeah, obviously people making that assessment that it was so young, and like, do you even really know who you are? Yeah. And the person that you are when you're 33 will be totally different, I think. Yeah, of course, but the person I am at 33 and 43 and 53 and 63. I hope they're all different people to like, I don't, I didn't never felt like I was gonna arrive at San Diego. final copy. So it just it always seemed like such a strange comment to be like, Yeah, but you're still figuring out who you are. Like, I assume I will do that forever.
Michelle Johnson
Yeah, and we can do that together too. So yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. Awesome. Thank
Sammy Jaeger
you for sharing. It's such a cool business to be working on together. How Do you go working with your husband so much? Yeah. So Nathan, I both have day gigs outside of the business that we have together. So it has been such an incredible learning experience, not just about business, but learning about a lot more about each other and our working styles as well. One of the big things has been like having very clear responsibilities and tasks, and we kind of nipped it in the bud pretty quickly to be like, we want to know who's going to take responsibility and accountability for stuff so that we can both work more autonomously. And we weren't spending all of our time doing. Are you going to do that? Am I going to do that? When are you going to do that. So that's been a big one. But we've also put a strong focus on leveraging each other's skills and strengths. So there's things that Nathan is just so much better at than me. He's an electrical engineer, really methodical, very process driven person. So he's been so great at creating things like checklists, and for not just us, but our team. Whereas I'm excel at creating relationships and meeting the people that we need to meet to create partnerships or to create opportunities for podcast guess or PR, or media and that sort of stuff. And that comes really naturally to me, whereas it doesn't for Nate. So we've made a really conscious effort to leverage the things that we are both good at and enjoy, and not trap either of us in stuff that is not fun. Good at. Yeah, those really like draining tasks. Yeah, another one is just to value each other's time. Right at the beginning, when we launched the podcast, we were doing absolutely everything ourselves. And we still do quite a lot of it ourselves now. But a big thing was the audio editing. So Nathan was spending upwards of 345 hours a week edit audio editing a 30 minute, 40 minute episode. And yeah, it was great to learn in the beginning, but it got to a point where I was like, Babe, this is not a great use of your time. And it's time that we outsource that and, you know, find someone who can support us and get the quality that we want without it sucking up this much of your time. So, you know, we were buying back, you know, what turned out to be like a night a week or half day on a weekend. So that he could not be tied up with those kinds of things. And same for on the reverse. There's things that I now outsource that I was initially doing in the beginning, because we just value each other's time. Another big one is just creating permission to talk shop. So if we're out at dinner, or we're lying in bed, or whatever it might be this, we consciously go, Hey, do you mind if we talk shop for a minute? Or? And sometimes one of us will be like, No, we know, we cannot know. Is this date night? Or no? I don't have bandwidth to open up that part of my brain right now. So I think those couple of things have really helped us to work well together.
Michelle Johnson
I really liked the last one. I'm just writing that down. Yeah. We have a similar situation, because we run businesses together, we also both have our own day gigs. And so there is this temptation that you sort of blur those lines, and you constantly talking about business when you think, oh, yeah, we're really close. We talk all the time. But maybe it is, you know, just business focused or more personal focused and thinking about how to separate that time really makes sense. But to do it consciously.
Sammy Jaeger
Yeah. And there's never an end to the conversation, that you'll never be done talking about your business. Like you can talk about ideas or opportunities, literally forever. So you've never run out. So I think it is really important that you create, like, shop free talk. So
Michelle Johnson
yeah, yeah, that sounds like a great idea. I think I would love to ask you how you manage your time as a couple given you've both got these pressures of doing other things? How do you manage your time together?
Sammy Jaeger
Yeah. So every year Nathan, I run what we call an annual gameplan day. And we take a day, sometimes three days out of the year. We do it at the end of November. So we've kind of run out year in line with the seasons. But we take that time to consciously plan, what are the big priorities for the upcoming year. So like, for 2022, we've set 22 goals that we want to achieve. So I think sometimes even just having that to defer back to in terms of time and going well, actually, we said, you know, we've gone down a rabbit hole on this shiny distraction. This was never part of the plan. And it does help manage the time because you do end up not spending time on the things that we've said are important. But we also massive on eliminating any tasks that just either don't need to happen or can be automated or can be delegated for a nominal kind of amount of money. So it's kind of like, Yeah, can we get rid of the task? Then can we automate the task? Okay, could somebody else be doing it? And that helps a lot. Because we do we, you know, we both work on our own respective things. So the time that we pour into our business is effectively would otherwise be personal time. So we do take, we do take that pretty seriously. But the other one is just to manage like the mind, not just the time. So like when I think sometimes we overlook the power of delegating things outside of the relationship, whether or not it's like a meal kit, delivery service, or, you know, automating subscription services for things to just arrive at home. Because it's not just the time that it's freed up to go and do that tasks or plan that task. But you actually have all of the mental bandwidth back because you don't have all these open loops of things going on in your brain. So we do a lot of that is like what what can I set up and forget about and not have to manage week in week out, I mean, there's still always going to be daily grind stuff that you just have to do. But anything that's repeatable and can be automated, we've pretty much done it.
Michelle Johnson
Yeah, I never thought so much of the potential to, I'll use the word manage, but I mean it in the nicest possible way, manage my relationship in the same way that I manage my businesses. And following you a little bit as definitely open that up that like those strategies work there, it makes total sense that it would work at home to have you know, like, of course, in business, we do an annual planning day, we have 90 Day planning. And for us, like we have like a 10 year sort of plan that we're working towards. But the check ins really haven't been super strategic. And you know, it's worked out okay, but you don't, we haven't been sort of consciously targeting to go that way. It was just like discussed once, and then you haven't really checked in. So yeah, I can definitely see how, in the same way, it helps keep you on track to your goals in business, it will keep you on track to your goals as a couple and not getting just Yes, stuck in that in the daily stuff. And not noticing what the big picture what you even want in the big picture or actually how to get there.
Sammy Jaeger
Hey, I applaud you for having the 10 year vision because you'd be you'd be one of the rare few because so many couples that we chat to just have never really talked about it or definitely not talked about it at a granular level. And sometimes there's like assumptions going on. Yeah, of course, they want the same as me. But then you have a conversation about it, like a couple that we were working with recently. They ran through an exercise that we do is part of our course and they on earth that one of them actually really wants to live overseas for a period of time in their life. Like and I have that that had never come up before. They've never talked about it before. It was like oh, okay, well, when when are we going to do that? How are we going to do that? Yeah. So I applaud you for having that. And it's, it's kind of like, this is probably a terrible analogy. But if you imagine that there was two pilots who got into a plane, and they only talked once when they were very first getting in the plane, like what is the likelihood that they end up at their destination that they both wanted to get to at the same time? Like without running out of fuel? Any of those kinds of things? Like it'd be near on impossible that if you Yeah, co piloting a plane together. There's constant communication about where you're going. And are we on track?
Michelle Johnson
Yeah, I appreciate you analogy I'll give you I feel like you and I have similar nerdiness around like time and like wanting to be as efficient and productive as possible. Do you have any like hacks that work for you guys in your family that you feel like really save you time that you can share with us?
Sammy Jaeger
I think one of them I already touched on was like subscription services. Like we have so many things in our life on subscription services, like we is not sponsored. Like HelloFresh, like, which stops us from having the What are we having for dinner? Do we have everything that we need or no, now I need to go and duck to the supermarket for half an hour an hour to go and get these two things that like we don't do that. Like that's rare in our in our house. I can say that, like we've got coffee beans on subscription. And it's kind of fun because they arrive every month and they're different toilet paper, laundry detergent, all of those kinds of things. And then we've almost created a almost like a internal household subscription, where we do our grocery shop once a month for all of those things that are consumable that are not perishable. So things like toothpaste, canned goods, deodorant, like all of that kind of stuff that just kind of gets consumed on a monthly basis and it makes it super easy to budget for it because it's predictable, and it saves us so much time. I spent a lot of time in my early in my career as an event manager. So we had this saying like two is one and one is none. Like, if you run out of toothpaste, that's really annoying. And there's not many days that you can go without toothpaste for. So you want to have one that you're using and one in the cupboard. Two is one and one is none. Yes, I think that's a really big one for us. Yeah, we, yeah, we're big on the managing energy, not time. So when there's bursts of energy, it's probably like, they'll probably be like a sleep specialist or someone who will be like, This is the worst thing you could possibly do. But if Nathan I find flow on a task, and we're both in the zone, for whether it's creating something or planning something, like we lean into that, and we managed to get what would otherwise be like a week's worth of work done, because we've got started. And if I find that often getting started is the hardest part. So when we try not to break momentum of if we found it, especially
Michelle Johnson
with two people, like it's hard enough on your own to make sure you start something, but getting two people in the zone at the same time is like gold, we have to get it up. But it's funny. I wanted to ask how do you stay organized around each other? And knowing what the other person's doing and making that as efficient as you can?
Sammy Jaeger
Yeah. So Nathan, I do this thing called a happy hour. We got we got the concept from some guests that we had on our show, and then it's kind of adapted. Basically, every Sunday night, we have a happy hour chat. And it's really just the logistics kind of conversation for the week ahead. So we do some really nice things like appreciation, what would you like to be appreciated for? Is there something you would like to give appreciation for? But then we also talk about like the calendar, what's going on in your world for the next week? Or two? Is there anything like out of the ordinary? We talk about food, if like, who's going to shop when where to support that meal kit delivery service? And like if that monthly shop things coming up, like adding things to list? We talk about money, opening up our banking app and taking a look at the numbers like are they where they should be? Have we structured the spending plan? Talk about sex? What what are we lacking? What are we not lacking? What are your kind of expectations for the next little bit? How are you feeling about your body? All that kind of stuff? And then just like how did you feel this week? Was it a good week? Was it a bad week? Or other kind of week? Like how connected you feel to me? Is there anything you'd like you know, apologize for? Is this something that I've done that's upset you and we might have some resentment building, we try and squish that pretty quickly? And then we've kind of rounded out with like, what are your priorities for the next week? What you know, what are you focusing on? What are the really important things? So the last couple of weeks, and if and I it's been about establishing a new routine that we've just moved into our new place, I only went back to work like a fortnight ago. So we're trying to find the new routine around bedtime exercise, all that sort of stuff. So that's been a really big focus for us. And then what can I help you with? How can I make your life easier. And it's, it's amazing how those that our, if we skip it, for whatever reason, it makes the rest of our week, so clunky, because we've you know, we haven't checked in on the money, and then all of a sudden, we've got this unexpected thing that we weren't. And then there's just the domino impact of all those kinds of things. Or you're having the same conversations day in day out, which could have been parked into one container, and then it's done. And then we just get to enjoy each other's company rather than having logistics level conversations all the time.
Michelle Johnson
Yeah, we actually had a very similar thing in our relationship where we were constantly like, who's taking the kids who's picking up the kids. And then we just decided at some point that it was easier to just have a schedule in place. So we just decided one time, okay, you're gonna take the kids on this day, and this day, I'm going to take them on this day. And it means that you don't have to think about it again. It's already decided and you're not taking up. Yeah, more conversational time dealing with it, and it does for your precious bandwidth. Right? Well, yeah, totally frees up space because you're not then constantly thinking every day about what's happening tomorrow. And, and I like to know, okay, I definitely am not taking the kids tomorrow, and then I can just prioritize myself without feeling should I be doing something else? Or, you know, is this okay? It's kind of already we've agreed to that upfront, and everyone knows what their expectations are, what their jobs are. Yeah, responsibilities.
Sammy Jaeger
Yeah, well, yeah. And it stops that back double handling of tasks too. Which can happen so easy Like, Oh, I thought I was gonna order that. Oh, I thought you were gonna order it that, like we know know who's handling what? Who's Yeah. Especially with like those things that are out of the norm like that happen? Yeah like invitations to events and things like that or buying concert tickets or any of that sort of stuff like if you can delegate and go who's taking ownership of this,
Michelle Johnson
I'll play support if you need a helper who's taking full accountability and responsibility for this thing. Yeah, it clears that all those like assumptions that lead to problems where everyone thinks someone else is doing it, and then no one does it. Yeah, if it's everybody's responsibility, it's nobody's responsibility. Yeah, exactly. Another business concept making its way into relationship with, oh, maybe I should have always been there. Do you have a mindset hack to share that you think helps you in your relationship or something you've seen a lot with the couples that you coach, and advice you've given?
Sammy Jaeger
Yeah. So Nathan, I like the reason for the our business being called fuel Collective is built on this idea that we've got eight different fuel tanks. And at any one time, those tanks could be running on full, or they could be running on empty. And if you don't ever look at them, and you don't ever take a second to go, Well, how are the different areas of my life going, one of them could be sitting on empty for a really long time. And then that kind of puts a stress and strain on the other ones. So I think the the mindset piece is about going, not everything needs to be running at full, perfect efficiency all the time. And I don't think that's ever the goal, right? Like, if you can get 80% 80% of the time, I think that's normally a pretty good outcome for anything, whether or not it's exercise, or diet or health or sleep, or, you know, what if you can nail it 80% Perfect 80% of the time, good outcome. But yeah, I think if you can decide what's a priority, and then act accordingly. It sounds so basic. But if you decide that your romantic relationship is a priority, it's important, you will follow through. Because really what you're saying, when you don't close the laptop, at the end of the day, and you tinker around, and you stay at the office later, or you check your email while you're sitting on the couch next to your partner, what you're really saying is, this thing that I'm doing is more important than you and our relationship. So think if you make a conscious decision, no, this is important. To me, this is a priority. And if it was, what would I be doing? And then you kind of know the answer, right? You wouldn't be making time for quality time, you would be making opportunities to surprise and delight and treat and you know, cherish your partner, you would be making sure that you've moved your body and you feel good so that you can have a really delicious sex life, and all of those things. But I think it starts with deciding that it is important, it is a priority in your life.
Michelle Johnson
Yeah, I love that. Thank you for sharing it. So I think I've definitely got some gold nuggets for myself out of today. Things to go in. Is there anything else that you would like to share with our listeners? What about what you've got going on? Or anything that you think would be helpful? Yeah, so
Sammy Jaeger
I would just add those eight fuel tanks that I mentioned, Nathan, I have got a quick quiz up on our websites do collective.com.au forward slash quiz. And you can go and take a quick sense check of where those tanks are, how are they feeling and what might need some attention, because I think if we can get in the helicopter and take a quick look, sometimes it's easy to see those holes from further away. But while you're in the daily grind, it can be really hard to go, oh, actually, I haven't really spent any time on myself lately, or I really haven't looked at my career in business. And if it's where I want it to be or, you know, I haven't spent much time with my friends like it. Sometimes when you're in the daily grind of those things. You don't acknowledge what might be missing or what you've got too much or not enough of something else. So yeah, the quiz is really designed to help you get a quick snapshot of what might need some attention and what you're already nailing because it's inevitable that you probably are nailing some things,
Michelle Johnson
huh? Yeah, I've done it. I've done your quiz. So I could definitely say that it's helped didn't go into insights. Yeah, it was a little while ago. So I can't remember exactly like which categories were which but I definitely took some of the advice for each different tank and put some things in place for us as well. So yeah, it's a great way to think about things and get that here like a bit of balance in those different areas and not get too stuck on one thing or being worried about one thing not being where it needs to be because you can also take a lot of comfort in like, Oh, these seven areas are actually really great. And mentally Yeah, it gives you some reassurance that you're on the right track. So Yeah,
Sammy Jaeger
I think it's a Tony Robbins quote, like where focus goes, energy flows. So like, if you're focusing on that one thing that is not great, like, that's where we energy is gonna be focused towards this shitty thing. Whereas in reality, everything else might be really awesome and need a little bit of perspective, but could work also the other way where you you want to harness that ability to focus and throw energy towards something that hasn't
Michelle Johnson
been great. Yeah, for sure. If people are interested in finding out a bit more about your course or the fuel collective, how can they get in touch with you? Yeah, so
Sammy Jaeger
I'm probably most active is San Diego on Instagram. And you can find me at as Sammy somewhere Sammy with an eye. But I'm on all the usual places of LinkedIn and that sort of stuff. But for a few collective come on over and listen to the date for podcast, we drop episodes every week, we talked to couples and experts about the things that they've found to keep a relationship fueled up, we've got a ton of free resources on our website, fuel collective.com.au forward slash freebies checklists, that meeting agenda, I say, Happy Hour agenda is on there, as well as a whole heap of other resources. So go help yourself. And I hope you can find some value in some to help you refuel some of
Michelle Johnson
those tanks. Amazing. I'm sure our listeners will jump on and learn something about their relationship. And if you just get one or two things that will change something for you, then that's, that's awesome. So yeah, thanks for putting all that together. And thanks for sharing a bit about your journey, what you've been doing and about your business and also some great tips that I think we'll be able to implement and improve our own life. So thank you so much for coming on. And I look forward to catching up with you another time.
Sammy Jaeger
Thanks so much.
Michelle Johnson
Thanks for joining me today on the mindset corner. If you're enjoying the episodes, please share it with your friends on socials. And if you love today's episode, please leave me a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify or wherever you choose to listen, it really helps people find the podcast. If you'd like to learn more, visit the mindset corner.com. There you can check out my current five day course loss to mind boss which is always available for you to lift up your mindset to the next level. Okay, see you next time and have a fantastic day.
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