What do reverse parallel parking and trust have in common? Lemme tell you.

Earlier this week I was driving with my husband Nathan in the passenger seat, we approached our destination and I spotted a car park on the street between a Vespa and another car, a tight spot but totally achievable for our little car.

As I reversed into the snug spot, Nath jumped out of our car and stood on the footpath giving me hand signals on how close I was to the obstacles in front and behind me as I manoeuvred into the spot. 

The car was parked and perfectly aligned in the space in under a minute. Not because I am an expert parker or because Nath is overly skilled in sign language but because we worked together as a team. Together we conquered a task much faster than if either of us had gone at it alone.

It’s almost the perfect analogy for our relationship and life together. Wherever possible we embrace the opportunity to see things from the others perspective to ultimately achieve the...

Hey Hey,

My husband Nathan and I got married in 2012. I was 23 years old and Nath just a smidge older at 24.

I feel wildly grateful to have already spent more than a decade with my person and yet we are still only in our early 30’s.

The first few years of our marriage, to put it kindly, were directionless.

We didn’t have a big vision or plan for our relationship or life and we really did just fumble our way through taking opportunities as they came, living very reactively and we hardly ever stopped to think if any decision big or small aligned with our values, priorities or goals.

The result was that we didn’t achieve a whole lot. Both as individuals or as a couple.

In 2014 we spent a big chunk of the year reacting to some curveballs which resulted in me moving from Adelaide to Sydney solo before Nath followed 6 months later. I started working in a new business that was also a bit directionless - no team meetings, no goals or directions, no targets to work towards and...

Hey Hey,

Have you ever played Tetris?

I grew up in the 90’s so my first hours with the game were clocked on a black and white gameboy.

If you were born later than me, you might not be familiar so to make sure the rest of this story makes sense here is a quick outline of the game: Tetris is a simple puzzle game where different shapes called "tetrominoes" fall from the top of the screen and then the player has to arrange them to form gapless lines, the more complete lines you create, the faster the blocks fall.

I have vivid memories of my mum kicking mine and my brother's ass wiping out her own record over and over again on long road trips as we each took turns playing while dad drove. My turn would be over quickly and mums would last for ages! I’m sure she still holds the top record in the hundreds on a retired gameboy somewhere in my grandparents garage.

Anyway, the reason I’m reminiscing about Tetris with you is for a worthwhile insight I want to share with you.

If...

Hey Hey,

Today’s Friday Fuel Up is all about The Future.

Last week Nath and I went LIVE as part of our Couple and Team launch week to talk about Sharing a Grand Vision. It got me thinking about how daunting it can be to think about the future.

What is a Shared Grand Vision? For us, it’s a big beautiful vision for the relationship and life we are creating together.

Maybe you’ve made a vision board before, or at least seen one. They can take many shapes but generally a vision board is a collection of images and words you curate and then display in a prominent place to remind you of what’s important, your values, goals and dreams. It can also be filled with things that inspire you or fill you with happiness and gratitude.

Nath and I have a long term intent for our relationship and a desire to grow old together so for us it’s been such a worthwhile activity to ask some questions, have some conversations and then go about actively designing both our life and...

Hey Hey,

This week I had a few black-dog days. Days where the world felt really heavy and hard. Maybe you’ve had one of these days before and are familiar with the feelings?

Over the years I’ve done quite a bit of work on my mindset and mastering my emotions with coaches and professionals. I am not perfect, but I’ve definitely come leaps and bounds from where I’ve been in the past.

Occasionally, one of these dark days, or a few of them back-to-back, take hold of me and all of my go-to tools don’t seem to work. When that happens, I’ve got a husband who both physically holds me but also holds space for me. It’s a fine line to walk between feeling the feels but not letting myself fall into a black hole of desperation. In those moments we are a couple and a team but he is playing lead.

The thing is, when I am in this state, I am not very useful to anyone, hardly even myself. I can’t focus on the wellbeing of the people or world around me....

Hey Hey,

My husband Nathan and I got married back in 2012, we were in our very early twenties and honestly, we fumbled our way through our first few years of marriage in terms of not really having much of a "plan". Yes dreams and ideas, but very little clue on how we were going to make it all happen.

Across the course of our first decade or so of being together we used to have these "state of the union" type meetings, at the time we didn't call them that but looking back, that's what they were. 

They were moments of coming together to chat about what's working, what's not, what's not being said that needs to be and what we’re doing or not doing that was causing each other issues.

They were always great chats with positive outcomes, but they were often AFTER something had happened or gone a bit sideways. Very reactive and not at all proactive.

Then a few years ago after I read a business book that without exaggeration changed my life (Traction by Gino Wickman), we added a...