Welcome to The Heart-Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love. Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second. From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism. So buckle up and let your heart guide your business journey.

Ladies and gentlemen, get ready to dive into some delectable dialogue with the Dynamo of Finances and Family, Dr. Travis Parry. As the number one bestselling author of Achieving Balance and Marry and Grow Rich, he's not just crunching numbers, he's crafting connections and cultivating cash flow with heart. So join us as we explore his journey of balancing business and family, spotlighting his heartfelt approach to financial freedom. Right here on the Heart-Led Business Show. Travis, welcome to the show.

Hey, thanks for having me.

Really excited to kinda dive into, I mean your story and your background.'cause I think it's absolutely fascinating kinda how you got to where you are today. But first of course, I always like to ask, what's your definition of a Heart-Led Business?

This is such a good way to reminisce on how we started Balance Growth Inc. It was something that my wife and I really had to make a heartfelt decision about how we were gonna run this. But years and years ago, I was a financial advisor and really started to see, how couples were struggling psychologically and relationally with money. I was primarily working with business owners who had cashflow and time issues. So all these challenges and I made a decision that I think was very heart-led but also I think in inspired to branch out and help business owners with these other issues that they were facing, not just managing portfolios or trying to protect for a rainy day sort of a thing. But I really wanted to help psychologically and relationally. So I made the decision to make this jump. So I define, a Heart-Led Business as following your values, following where I believe God takes you and when individuals, especially business owners, are following their values, not just profit. It's interesting how the profit follows because you enjoy it, you love it. It's not a drudgery and most business owners, they get into the business for two reasons. Besides wanting, to help people with a problem that they have, whether a service or product that fixes that, but they want time freedom. And they want financial freedom. So this herein lies the issue and where I think, we do a good job following that, but to make a long answer even longer. It's really just following your gut, following what you feel inspired to do.'cause as you follow that, as you live your values psychologically, you feel more balanced.

You're absolutely true on the, if you keep track of your money all the time, then you're not really giving much to your clients. And so the business can go up and down and up and down, but if you're just leading with your heart and let the profits follow, they do follow, which is amazing that a lot more people don't really, believe in that if you will. I thought it was interesting too, what you said about, marriage and money. Isn't that the number one issue with most couples is money.

Yes, and yes. The number one issue that couples argue about by far and away is money. It's the number one issue that couples come to therapy over. We can't put our finger and say, this is the issue that all couples are divorced from, blah, blah, blah. Because we can't actually go backwards and scientifically test it, but we do know that money is part of all these conversations. And so that's, it's been a lifelong quest of mine to dissect this and not from a what is happening negatively. There's a lot of that. What are the pitfalls? What are things, what are we doing wrong? I wanted to actually look at what couples that are, have a strong relationship are doing really well and model that, we call it strengths-based research and I wanted to figure out what are couples doing? What is it that they're actually doing to make it work. And how are they, how are business owners actually doing this? How are they making this work while growing and scaling? And then maybe, eventually exiting their business.

Yeah, and then, and that compound your marriage stress along with business stress and then money on top of that. That's, for any entrepreneur, and that it's always up and down So that's, yeah that's fascinating. So tell me a little bit about your backstory and kind your change in career and what led up to that.

Yeah, so I, I grew up in a family where money was often a point of contention. I had a mom and a dad that loved each other and they were faithful to each other. They taught us about God and about the world, great parents, great parents. I just noticed from a very young age that there was a lot of contention around that topic and I didn't understand. And as I got older, maybe I understood a little bit more. And so I'd always done my own businesses. I always a newspaper route boy. I refereed soccer after playing the My Heart Out. I would go and I'd referee'cause I'd make 20 bucks a game. That was like 35 years ago. And I was, I was making, that was great money for a kid. And I would buy my own stuff because I felt like if I could be responsible. I could lessen some of the burden, lessen the stress of my parent. That was my thinking. And that I think subconsciously maybe some of the issues around money in our family led me into wanting to understand how money actually works. I did what any, a person does, and I became a financial advisor. And I learn about it, then I can teach others about it and I can help them. What was crazy is about four years into this journey, my father was a month away from his 50th birthday. We were planning it. It was surprise party. We were gonna have so many people come and attend. It was gonna be marvelous and awesome. My dad was a very healthy, active man who ate really well, as far as I, I knew back then and out of the blue one day I got half a dozen phone calls from a whole bunch of family members all at the same time. My brothers, my mom, and then my wife called and was like, crap, who died? And I found out that it was my father. He passed away on a mountain bike ride with his friend who was an EMT that worked on him for 30 minutes until helicopter came and life-flighted him to the hospital where it was like out of a movie scene where everybody was gathered and they came out and said, that's all we could do for him. He's gone. And just like that, dad's gone. It changed my whole life in just, one fell swoop. Changed my mom's life, obviously. They've been married for 28 years, and like I said, happy, good marriage. Two imperfect people that loved each other, right? That's what marriage is. And I learned a lot from them. What was crazy is I actually wrote my father's obituary. I was 25. I helped, my mom was beside herself, so I planned the funeral with her. I bought the casket, I bought the plot of ground. I helped manage everything'cause it was my way of coping. It was my way of helping in a time that was so dark, like I was figure out what could I do. Anyway, all that to say, that, that changed me so much. I examined my life so deeply that I said, you know what it's actually time. It's time to help business owners with some of these things, help them with their stress, help them psychologically with money. I can't bring bad back my father, but I can help other dads. I can help them with the struggles they have with business. And the autopsy came back and said, Hey, this is a stress induced heart attack. There was buildup in his plaque or arteries that caused this plaque in the arteries. It was 90% clogged in several of his arteries. His father ended up getting a quadruple bypass a month later when he went in for a checkup. Hey, this is probably runs in my family. I need to make some changes health wise, business wise. And so I began that journey and said I, I need to really change some things and go way beyond what a financial advisor and planner is able to do and have, gone in to get a master's and a PhD and now I train, consult, coach and help business owners with all these issues. And I find it has brought me a lot of joy and a lot of fulfillment in my life to be able to give back.

Yeah. And that, that's what's so fascinating, just going, almost, going from the financial advisor into, psychology and getting your PhD and then now doing the consulting that you're doing. A lot of people think, financial advisor, that's all profit. There, I've had financial advisors on the show too that do that with heart. But it's, very interesting that it's almost a full pendulum swing to the other side. Like a 180. But life events like that absolutely shape, shape our lives in different ways and it's always amazing to kinda get everybody's story on. That transformation and what happens and yeah, it's usually there is that one, one little defining moment and then boom we're off to the races. Yeah. So if we shift gears a little bit and go to talk about the business side. So a lot of business owners struggle. Obviously you're working with a lot of them with with making a profit, alone being heart-led. So how do you balance making a profit and being heart-led at the time?

Oh man. I love this question and I've been preparing my thoughts around this and really wanna dive in. What I have found is most business owners, again, they want the time freedom. They want financial freedom. It is possible, okay? It is possible to have your cake and eat it too. You can grow, you can even scale. While having a lifestyle that is conducive to a family, that is conducive to low stress, that is conducive to healthy living. I think so many people entrepreneurs, business owners think that you know what they're doing. Enter product, enter service, whatever it is, we need it. Like they're solving problems. We need entrepreneurs badly. We need each other. However, when you cross that threshold of I'm gonna give everything to everyone else, and I'm not gonna take care of myself, you're being irresponsible. And that's just it. Think about how many times people will show up to an appointment for a client or they'll be there for a company meeting or to strategize with their business partner, but they won't go to the gym. They won't keep their own appointments. There's something about this that really strikes a nerve in me, and that is this accountability to self enter marriage. What I've discovered is I worked with Tony Robbins, Joe Vitale, Jim Rohn, Stephen Covey. I worked with their coaching programs for years. And what I came to understand is that working for them as well as working with them is that the focus is on the individual. The focus is so much on, your own accountability and we can talk about accountability and people will say you need systems. And I agree system's systems. But if you have someone else who is, not a paid mentor, not a therapist, not a coach. And again I do coaching, I do mentoring. That's great. But I actually teach these business owners to rely on each other, not codependency. But to lean on each other.'cause that research back about what makes good marriages work and how do they work it out financially, it's based on their shared goals and values. So couples that are going the same direction and acting with, these shared values and goals, they're acting on these and they're gonna accomplish more financially, they're gonna be happier psychologically and better off in their marriage than if they aren't. Okay, so put that, put in that perspective. I take it a step further and say, great, so how do we develop this? How do, how do we create shared values and goals? How do we then use that to keep your balance? And that's the key. The spouse, every single time. I've interviewed over 2,500 business owners for both achieving balance and Marry and Grow Rich, I have done my research. This is where my brain is. Okay. I've done it. Like I, I've done the dissertation. I've learned what the, the books say and what other theorists say, and I've gone really deep and I've done my, my work there. But actually interviewing business owners has been fascinating. On my podcasts for my book research, et cetera. And I have found that there's really three types of business owner. The first type thinks that he has to just never grow and scale.'cause then he'll be able to keep his balance. Okay. I'm afraid they're afraid to grow. They think if they get to a certain, level, that somehow they're gonna lose their life'cause they've seen it ruin other people. Type two. These are the guys that I found that they don't even believe that balance exists. And you're, if they think that balance is 50 50, it's not like you, that is, that's incongruent. But balance really is working on your highest priorities in life that does actually exist. But they think I have to work like crazy and I've gotta sleep at my desk and I've gotta do all these things. I gotta be Elon Musk. Okay.

Yeah.

But then they ruin their marriage. Their kids don't know who they are. Their health is in the tank. They don't have a relationship with God, the things that most business owners care about most. Okay. So they're they sacrifice themselves thinking I'll create balance somewhere down the road and I'll take care of my health later. It may be too late, right? It may not ever work out. The third kind has figured it out. They've actually realized that if they work together with their spouse. And they keep this sense of balance. They actually are motivated to be more productive at work, spend less time there, goof off, less waste time, however you wanna say it. And they have to develop systems. They have to develop teams, they have to develop AI led solutions to save them time. But when they save that time, they reinvest it with their health. God, their family, their friends, and that's the balance that we need is, Hey, I really love what I do. I've got this heartfelt bus, like Heart-Led Business. I enjoy this so much that it doesn't feel like work. It doesn't matter. It's still work. Yes, be obsessed about it. Yes, love it. You gotta put boundaries on areas of your life or else it's just gonna take over everything. And again, like I said, you're gonna be that type two person who is giving everything to the business, giving nothing to the marriage and the family or health or to God. And then you end up going where am I? And how did I get here?

Yeah, and no, you might have a pile of money, but no friends, no family

That's right.

That's never good. So, I want to kinda dive in to what you're meaning by, leaning upon each other for the spouse and the business owner specifically. Are you suggesting that the spouse takes some type of role into the business or is that more just emotional support at home and understanding kind of the entrepreneurial journey that we all go.

Yeah, I, it doesn't necessarily matter if the the spouse is active in the business or passive in the business. But I think what you hit on there is that support, right? Dr. John Gottman there, there are two Johns. There's John Gray, who wrote a great book that has been sold more than any other book about marriage. Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. But it's based on an incorrect theory. It's a fun, catchy title. And, but it doesn't really help. John Gottman is the world's foremost researcher on marriage and relationships, and I've leaned on his theories a lot to understand marriage and what he says is that great couples not only have supportive goals for the marriage and the relationship, but they also support each other's goals and dreams. Think about it. Quick example. My wife's like, hey, I wanna get into running and I wanna run a half marathon. Will you support me in this? What does that look like? I ran after a soccer ball, and I, quite honestly, I tried long distance running. I was so bored. I just, I hated it anyway. She's Hey, I actually want you to be there and support me at the finish line. I'm like, great, I can do that. But then it became, I want you to run with me. And I was like, oh man, can I do that? But I found not only did we spend a lot of time together, we didn't run fast. Yeah we ran a long distance, but we're, we weren't running fast. That gave us the opportunity to talk a lot. We spent a lot of time together training for this half marathon. Coincidentally, I race mountain bikes, so she supports me like, yeah go train. She goes to the races and she cheers me on, it's that mutual support. I, she does things that I support and I do things that she supports. It's just what friends do. Does that make sense? We don't have to necessarily like, or, do everything, but if you do, that's awesome. And the same goes for business. Support each other in what you're doing because that's what is the mutually agreed upon goal. Now what I have found is people have said, Hey, should I go into business? And I'm thinking about this idea. A lot of times people before they have those ideas will come to me and I'll say, hold on. Tell me about your wife. How will she be when she doesn't have income for two months and there's these big deals that never close, or the ups and downs, like how is she going to be? And if they say, oh man, that will kill her, then don't do it. It's not worth it. You are sacrificing the most important person in your life for a business. And that's just how it is. But if the wife or spouse in this case will be supportive I'm all for it.'cause it'll work out. It will always work out. And my wife and I have had many, moments where we've had to heart ask those questions like, what do we do now, COVID? What do we do now? There's always, shift in economies and et cetera that have led. So yeah, one of the biggest takeaways I've found is if you're on the same team and you have shared financial goals. Shared relationship goals, shared parenting goals. You're on the same page in these areas. There's really little room for, power struggle for miscommunication. Will they happen? Sure. But if you're going the same direction, you're great. The biggest losers out there, quite honestly, losing meaning they, they lose in these relationships is when they're just not on the same page and it's continual fight, it's continual miscommunication because they're just not going the same direction.

Yeah. And that's a really great, really great point because, even in business too if you're not moving forward with your team, then it's, a big struggle as well because you don't have everybody going in the right direction. So why not do that at home as well? And I think that's where a lot of business owners too much and they're like, oh, I can do this at work, but I can't do this at home.

It goes the same for the team. If they're not on the same page the direction of the business and they're not, they're kicking against the prick, so to speak, against the mission, vision, or goals of the business. It's a matter of time, right? They're not gonna be there too much longer.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Travis, how can people learn more about the work that you do and potentially work with you?

Yeah, so I've written a couple of books. I've got a website. If you go to travisparry.com, you can find all about me and what we're doing and my podcast that I run as well, and the coaching mentoring that we provide. But anybody who wants my, a copy of my latest book. Marry and Grow Rich. What I do in this book is actually break down what we've been talking about, the issue, the problem that married couples face when they're trying to grow and scale and actually have balance in their life, have great relationships, good health, all the things.'cause it is possible you can be a type three. It is absolutely possible. You need to have the right methodology. So I break down the framework here in this book, and I give you all the steps. The three biggest things that I see quite honestly business owners struggle with is, number one, their own psychology. They're limiting beliefs. That is, I can teach'em the framework, but it's dead in on arrival if they can't get past their own subconscious thought problems and issues. Two, how to actually get on the same page with your spouse if you're not lined up, if you're not going the same direction. Here are the step by steps, how to do it and third, how to become a thought leader in your business and to your industry so that you can get out of the day to day and really become the CEO, really become a business owner. Quite honestly, most business owners are not business owners. They are they have a practice. It's running them, right? It's running them. And the easiest test for this is go on vacation. Go on vacation. Are you stressed outta your mind before you go? Are you worried about your business the entire time you're gone and you come back with more problems and less clients than when you left? Okay. Yes to any of those. You don't have a business, you have a practice. And so I, I walk through how do you get your team on the same page? How do you become a thought leader so you can grow while you stay married? So if you're interested in that you can get this book for 4.95 or something you can get on Audible and you can listen to it there, Amazon, but if you go to my website, it's maryandgrowrichbook.com. Pick it up. Grab that. You can download it today and get started on it. Or listen to me read it off to you the audio book. Either way that is there for the audience. maryandgrowrichbook.com or go to travisparry.com and you can learn all about me.

Awesome. Awesome. We'll put all that into the show notes so that it makes it very easy for them to find that. Travis, thank you so much for being on the show today and sharing your wisdom with the guest. And I just really appreciate you, you doing that.

Awesome. Thanks for having me. And I always like to say Tom, to listeners, this is a joint effort, live life on purpose together.'cause that's what you care about. That's why we're in business. We're here to provide for our families and help others out there. And you can have it both ways. So thanks for having me.

Of course. And thank you listeners for listening and watching the show today. We really do appreciate it and make sure you're checking out everything that Travis is doing and we're gonna put all those links down into the show notes so you can grab his book start to get on the same page with your spouse and your team as well. And then while you're down there, there might be a little rating and review button if you could do us a favor and give the show a rating and review. We'd really appreciate that as well. And until next time, lead with your heart.

You've been listening to The Heart-Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs. Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.