You have a jar and you have rocks in various sizes. Big rocks the size of your fist, pebble sized rocks and grain of sand rocks. The question is how do you get all the rocks into the jar?

Well, you put the big rocks in first. Then the pebbles. Then the grains of sand. Any other order would not be successful. Or so the personal development books say anyways.

So what are the big rocks in your life? What do you make sure makes it into your Franklin Covey planner, and what do you merely hope fits into the crevices of the important things?

Deep down I think we all know what the big rocks should be. They should be  our family, friends, and of course our special sweetie. But those are usually the ones we just wish we had more time for, and in the end they get the leftovers when it comes to time and attention.

A big reason that they fall into the crevices of our schedule is because we don’t have a plan (another self-help book nugget of wisdom: “Failing to plan is planning to fail”). So let me help you out:

15 minutes daily
1 evening weekly
1 weekend monthly
1 week a year

In an effort to help couples in Nashville do a better job with Love Management, I’m starting a weekly newsletter with ideas on how to work this time into your busy schedule. Just sign up here (and it’s free)!

]]> http://nashvillemarriagestudio.com/blog/real-life-couple/love-management/feed/ 0 http://nashvillemarriagestudio.com/blog/real-life-couple/love-like-an-egyptian/ http://nashvillemarriagestudio.com/blog/real-life-couple/love-like-an-egyptian/#comments Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:56:36 +0000 Marie McKinney-Oates, MMFT http://nashvillemarriagestudio.com/blog/?p=499 A few months ago I started the Real Life Couple series to highlight couples that were examples of good love behavior.

Here is the first (and only) post from this series. The couple is great. Go check it out.

Now it’s time for the second…

Two nights this week I found myself volunteering in my community. Monday night I was at the Nashville Adult Literacy Council helping adults practice reading. Tuesday night I found myself at Haywood Hills Baptist Church during their community computer class.

Both nights I ended up working with older couples, and both nights the couples happened to be from Egypt. On Monday I helped the husband practice his reading while his wife waited in the lobby, and Tuesday I helped a different older Egyptian couple figure out how to use a mouse. Both couples were so grateful and absolutely delightful to work with. I had a blast.

Not only did I have a great time, but I was inspired by these Real Life Couples. Can you imagine moving to another country to “start over” that late in life? I can’t. I mean, no one travels when they’re old, right? That’s why all of us 20-somethings are obsessed with traveling the globe because, dude, once you hit 30 they take your passport away. It’s true.

Seriously, these couples left Egypt where they were music teachers and accountants to essentially start over here in a America. I have no clue how these couples met or how they resolve their conflicts, but I’m very impressed with the fact that they’re still going on VERY SCARY adventures with one another despite society’s rules about how you’re supposed to enter senior citizenship (quietly and in a rocking chair).

Love like an Egyptian and tell society to shut up.

It can be difficult to find a mentor couple for many reasons.  Some times we aren’t around many relationships that we’d actually want.  Or the couple is just too different.  Or no one seems to be dealing with issues that we are faced with. 

I understand.  So I’m starting a “series” (I hate to call something a “series” because that seems to be the kiss of death for any idea I have, but I’m going with it) called Real Life Couple and I will feature real life couples that are successfully navigating different life stages or relationship issues.  I’m super excited about this because it will give couples an opportunity to get quasi-mentorship.  Which is better than nothing, right?

The first couple for this series is Mindy and Phil from Phindy Studios.  They are Nashville wedding photographers and can I just say, “Ohmigoodness.  I love their work”?  Of course I can.  It’s my blog. 

I found them on Ashley’s Bride Guide, where all bridal goodness can be found, and not only did I love their work I loved that their partnership allowed them to do something that they love (photography) together.  Most couples can’t stand spending the evening after work together, much less the whole day!  I wanted to know their secret.

I hunted them down and asked for an email interview, which they so graciously provided…

Being photographers means helping couples tell their story.  What is your story?  How did you meet?  How long have you guys been married?  Have any kids? 

    We met 7 years ago through work.  Mindy worked for the concert promoter that put on “Dancin’ In The District” and Phil designed all of the event’s branding and marketing materials.  It took us a couple months, but we became friends and started dating soon after.
    We dated for 3 years then Phil proposed.  We will be celebrating our 4th wedding anniversary on July 9th!  We have no kids yet but they are in our near future. We promised each other we would travel through Europe before kids, hopefully we can find time to do that this fall.

Takeaway:  Dating for at least 2 years is one of the best predictors of a successful marriage.
And being married does not mean your dreams of traveling through Europe die.
All it means is that now you’ve got a travel buddy.  For life.  Which is cool.

How did you know Mindy/Phil was “The One”?

    Mindy:  I have no good answer for this, it’s cliche’ but I just knew.  He has a good heart and I couldn’t imagine spending my life with anyone else. 

    Phil: Have you ever met someone and you just felt like you already knew them?  I instantly felt comfortable around Mindy, we just clicked.  I always wanted to be around her, spend time with her and get to know everything about her.  I can’t imagine my life without her.  That and she is a hottie

Takeaway:  They enjoy being around each other.  This is really important, especially when you decide to work together.  And that’s just adorable that Phil called Mindy a hottie.

Were you professional photographers before you got married?  If not, how did your marriage/relationship encourage you guys to pursue this dream? 

Phil did commercial photography quite often because of his design job and Mindy always had a love for photography and it was passion for both of us.  After we got married, our wedding photographer, Alison Bynum, encouraged us to pursue it and 2nd shoot (like shadowing) with other photographers.  We were pretty much hooked after that first wedding. We worked hard to make this a viable full time business option for us both.  We loved the idea of being our own bosses and working together from home, we also both wanted to be home when we had kids.

Takeaway:  There is nothing better than doing something you enjoy with someone you love.  You don’t have to turn it into your career like Mindy and Phil, but definitely make those activities priorities in your life.

Working with your spouse means that the work/life lines becoming even more blurry.  How do you guys handle separating work time and personal time? 

We’d be lying if we said we weren’t still working on this.  It’s a constant struggle to have a balance of life, especially at this time of year, but at least we are aware that it is something we need to work on.  It’s definitely something we want to have under control by the time we start a family.  Luckily we have some great photographer friends in the area that help us remember to have a social life and do fun things together, even if we usually end up just talking about our work!

Takeaway:  “But at least we are aware that it is something we need to work on.”  I love this answer because it is so true.  Most relationship issues, like balancing work and life, never go away.  It’s just life.  The only thing you can really do is recognize that it is a struggle and be proactive towards keeping it a minimal problem. 

What is it about your couplehood that makes working together possible?

I think what makes it possible is that we both really want it.  We want to work together and a big motivator is that we want to have a successful business that will allow us to work from home and raise a family.  It’s definitely a challenge, considering that we share a 10×10 office, but we just try to not eat loud foods and type too loudly

Takeaway:  This is a great example of why it’s so important for couples to have goals.  Goals allow a couple to ignore the little issues (loud typing) to focus on the bigger picture (dreams of working together and raising a family).

What is the hardest part of working together?

The hardest thing about working together is just remembering that this is your spouse, not just a business partner.  Sometimes you can get wrapped up in the stress and emotion of a moment and forget you are talking to the person you love.  It takes a conscious effort to mix work and your relationship.  It is something we are still learning and working on and that’s just it, you have to keep working on it and growing.  You need both tough skin and kid gloves!

Takeaway:  I swear I love this couple.  Tough skin and kid gloves is amazing advice.  Follow it.

One of my favorite things about your photography, especially the engagement shots, is your ability to capture the personality of the couple.  Sometimes the couple is trendy and look like they belong on the cover of Rolling Stone and other times they are playful (like the ones with the Uno cards).  When you work with a couple what are some characteristics that you see that make you think, “THIS is a great couple”.

This is a hard question!  For us I think that anytime a couple laughs a lot together that is always a good indicator.  Also, I think you can just tell if a couple is genuinely happy & comfortable together.  We seriously find something great about all our clients, everyone has something unique and interesting to bring to the table, like loving UNO for instance. 

Thank you so much, Mindy and Phil, for sharing your relationship and all this wonderful advice!