AJ: [00:00:00] Hey y’all. Welcome to the influential personal brand, AJ Vaden here. Uh, we got a special episode today that is personal in nature, and we love doing episodes like this every so often because in the world of talking about personal branding and tips and technologies and strategies, sometimes we just need to take a step back and also look at the other parts of our life that are really. Foundational and fundamental. And today we’re gonna be talking about one of those parts on the topic of marriage because as an entrepreneur who is married to an entrepreneur who is in business together, uh, this is a never ending topic at our house. And, uh, what I have learned over the last. Few months, as I’ve been talking to a lot of brand builders, group members and podcast listeners is there’s a lot of you out there who are on the precipice of going into business with your spouse. And so I thought this would be an amazing episode, uh, to [00:01:00] not only hear from two people who are married. And working on their brand together, uh, but two people who actually speak about marriage. So that’s what we’re gonna be talking about today. And so we are joined by Casey and Megan Caston. These are the passionate co-founders of Marriage 365, which I have got to learn. So much about over the last several months, and I love, they also have a new booklet just came out. Uh, you guys are gonna learn all about that. They have an amazing app. We’ll talk more about that later as well. Um, but they have an amazing, uh, and powerful testament to resilience and love as they’ve transformed their own struggles from the brink of divorce into a thriving resource for couples. Everywhere. And, uh, that includes, uh, not just people who are married in a business together, but it’s all types of couples from all different types of walks of life. Uh, they’ve been married, uh, I believe now for almost or over 22 years if [00:02:00] my, uh, memory is correct. Uh, but they also have over a decade of experience helping couples reconnect. And so today we’re gonna talk about something that might be controversial in nature, which is. Couples don’t need more therapy, they need more tools. So Casey, Megan, welcome to the show. Casey: Thank you so much aj. Excited to be here. Yes. It’s weird that marriage is our business and our business is marriage. Yeah. So it is a nonstop conversation around our world to like, how do we manage the business and our marriage at the same time? When that’s our business. Meygan: Oh yeah. We, we’ll get in like to an argument and then immediately after I’m like, Ooh, that would be a really good podcast episode. It’s like, okay babe, chill out. Let’s just like calm down from the argument. But it’s funny because every time we have an interaction, we learn, we fight, we argue like every other couple, um, you know, we’re like, how can we help other people that are in the same situation as we are? [00:03:00] That’s what we do. AJ: I love that. Uh, and you know, uh, what a great way to make every argument a successful piece of your content, Meygan: make every argument count. AJ: That’s right. That’s right. Um, I love that. And, uh, what I would love to do, um, is kind of, you know, start with some of the, the meat and tools, and then I’ll probably backtrack a little bit and talk about how you guys got here. But since I’ve led with that provocative statement of, you know, couples don’t need more therapy. They need more tools. I would actually love to start there because I think that we, even before I hit record, we were having this conversation, I’ve, how the default is with any relationship, any marriage that’s struggling, it’s like, oh, we need, we need to go to therapy. Mm-hmm. And you guys are going, no, couples don’t need more of that. They need better tools. They need more tools. Yeah. So can you just kind of like, well, one, how did you come to this? You know, you know, recollection of like, no, it’s not that, it’s this. And then what? [00:04:00] What are the tools that we need as married couples? Casey: Yeah, so I think when we walked into marriage, like all of our friends, we just kind of felt like love is all you need and we’re just gonna wing it. And I think there’s so many people that feel like that when it comes to their love life. They just kind of go off on the whims of whatever they feel in the moment. And I think that that is very damaging to long-term relationships because Megan and I got married and then I thought love would carry us through the day. But what happens when I don’t feel love? Then I, then I thought there was something actually wrong with us, and that’s what took us down by year three, we, we grew to actually hate each other because we, we had all these expectations over how you were supposed to treat me and you were supposed to be there for me. Then you let me down. And all that missed expectations just led to anger and resentment and it was very explosive for us. We’re very, we’re both fighters competitive and we’re probably more different than [00:05:00] we are alike. Meygan: Yeah, on top of being very stubborn people. Stubborn, so then very stubborn. Then you kind of start to think, you know, did I marry the wrong person? And I think all these couples go through those questions. Did I make the biggest mistake? Did I marry the wrong person? Oh my gosh, we’re falling out of love. And this whole idea of therapy, I mean, therapy’s only been around for what, a little less than a hundred years. So what did all the millions and millions of couples do from the beginning of time? It’s the longest institution we have on the planet. What did they do? They couldn’t go to therapy. And what do you do if you can’t afford therapy? What do you do if you have a spouse who’s unwilling to go to therapy? Which by the way is the majority of couples. These are so many good questions. Yes. What do you do if you don’t have a great therapist in your area? I mean, I know we’re both fortunate to live more in areas where there’s a lot of. Resources and therapy. There’s a lot of people in small towns that they don’t have. If you go to the one marriage and family therapist, everyone in your town’s gonna know about it, and everyone’s gonna talk about it and go, Ooh, what’s wrong with them? Casey: Right. And so that [00:06:00] just can leave a fe a a couple feeling very stuck. Mm-hmm. And from a biblical worldview, you know, we, we see that there’s biblical principles, uh, that make things work. They’re found in the Book of Proverbs, we always consider the book of Proverbs to be actually be the book of marriage. Mm. Because. And, and, and when you think about Proverbs and even like New Testament James, like very practical, very tactical. And when you think about a marriage relationship, you can’t give a platitude to get somebody out of anger and resentment. You have to give them tools to be able to navigate conflict, talk about uncomfortable topics and, and to, to even plan for the future. So I think there was a big aha. Especially as like, we’re trying to, we’re like building our business. And when we think about walking into this area and domain of our life, you know, we’re very practical. We’re tactical, we’re looking at goals, we’re looking at frameworks. How do I build [00:07:00] and scale a business? And when I talk to entrepreneurs, which, which most of our listeners, right, they’re all, we’re all trying to build a brand. We’re building a business. We’re listening to podcasts, we’re receiving content and information, and how do I structure my business? What are my operating system for my business? Mm-hmm. Casey: And so working with entrepreneurs, they totally understand that I. But then when they walk through the front door of their home, it’s just the wild, wild west. Yeah. It’s chaos. You’re reactive. Mm-hmm. And it’s like I walk, you know, when I walk into the office, I’m like thinking Stephen Covey’s seven habits of highly effective people. Be proactive. First things first. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then when I walk in the home, it’s like, be reactive. The priorities are all out of whack. Like, I’m not, you know, trying to learn and grow. And that becomes the place where a lot of couples find themselves struggling because they haven’t been intentional [00:08:00] and they haven’t been curious with that. I have AJ: a question. Yeah. ’cause I think that is, uh, spot on what you just said. ’cause it’s, I live in a very entrepreneurial, you know, connected community, uh, here in Nashville. And what you just said is true. I’ve almost. Everyone that I know, it’s like, you know, it’s like they run a tight ship at work and when they get home it’s complete chaos. Yeah, yeah. And we were really fortunate to get some amazing life advice early in our marriage. ’cause we were, I don’t know if you guys know this, we were business partners, Rory and I, before we fell in love and got married. Meygan: Oh, I did not know that. So we started AJ: in business. Wow. Before we fell in love and got married and. Somebody just told us very early on, maybe even before we were formally married, but they just said, Hey, let me give you a tip that’s gonna help you in every aspect of this partnership [00:09:00] together. And they said. Run your house, like you run your business. Oh, I see. That’s great Meygan: advice. Yep. Great advice. Whoever that was. Thank you. AJ: And so and so we did. Yeah. Um, like from the moment that we got married, we’ve always had, like, this is our household calendar, this is our business calendar. We have a household, uh, manual of like how the house works, what does, like, we’ve literally treated it like that. That was not of our own volition, right? There was somebody who came in and said like, this is the best advice I can give you in this season of life you’re in. And it’s treat your house like you treat your business. But most didn’t get that advice or they haven’t heated that advice. And since you guys have worked with so many couples like this, I would just love to know like. Why is that? Like why are we so wired to do it in one aspect of our life and completely negate or ignore it in another? Meygan: Yeah, I think honestly, it’s a cultural thing. I think that we invest so much into our children’s education, which is great, and then we go to college and we get really passionate about [00:10:00] our career and that pathway. Right, right. And there’s nothing wrong with that. We’re all for that. We, I believe, and Casey believes this too, and we are seeing this now, and I think especially after Covid, our relational IQ is depleted. It’s not there. It’s non-existent or it’s very weak. Where we are really good in our career. Or our hobby, but we are not great at relationships, emotions, feelings, communication within relationships that matter. And so Well, Casey: people wanna go where they’re winning too. Meygan: Yeah. And you wanna go where you’re winning. So if you’re winning at work, you’re not winning at home, you’re gonna escape to work. And not only that, but you get a paycheck and you get attaboys at work. Right. Where at home it’s. You might be getting nitpicked or Casey: you just get dirty diapers Meygan: Yeah. To do that. Right. Um, your kids don’t thank you until they’re older. That, and so it’s kind of thing good. Yeah. And so I think that what we’re seeing is this cultural shift and it’s very slow, which is good. It’s going in the right direction where people are realizing it’s not working [00:11:00] what we’re doing. Mm-hmm. Meygan: We’re neglecting the most important thing, which is connecting with others. Right. Our, our work is meaningful because we believe in it, but that. Can can shift any day, right? Like you could lose your job tomorrow. You could get in a car accident and be parallel. I mean, we just don’t know what tomorrow holds. But if we’re connected to our spouse at home and that’s like the mothership and our family’s running well then, then we’re good to go. So I think, again, going back to your example, see you guys didn’t need therapy. You got a tool. And you utilized. There you go. The tool. And it worked for you. And that’s what’s amazing. And listen, we’re not here to, to harp on therapy because part of our story is I went to therapy by myself because he wouldn’t go. Mm-hmm. We’re very pro, by the way, individual therapy. Yeah. But again, not everybody can afford it. Not everyone’s gonna go. AJ: Yeah. It’s expensive. Hard to find good people, hard to afford it. Not covered by insurance out, I mean, yeah. Yes. Meygan: You know what, AJ too. It’s a very slow process. You know, a once a week, [00:12:00] one hour session is not enough for most people by the time they go to therapy. I think that’s the other thing, like the the way it is is, is Casey: it’s hard now, and mind you aj, we’re, we got a unique perspective because we probably get. Two to 300 dms a day just on Instagram. And the story is the same. We’ve spent thousands of dollars and months and years in therapy. Yeah. And all we do is just talk about our problems, but we don’t have a tool. Solution. Yeah. Or a solution. And that to me, right there is where again, like. Uh, marriage is so tactical in life. Like the way you run your marriage is the way you run, actually a lot of things in your life. Yeah. Um, and that’s why what actually one of the tools that we talk about is the weekly marriage business meeting, which you kind of actually do with Rory, which is once a week Megan and I walk through our calendars. Yeah. We look through meal plans. We have a, a whole list. We’ll, we’ll send that to you so you can share that with your, your audience, but love that. Casey: Um, it is a [00:13:00] weekly meeting and it sets, it sets intention. Yeah. The right expectation and we find alignment for the week ahead where we’re actually calendaring time for us too. Mm-hmm. Or alone time. Like I need some self-care time. I need to work out. Right. I got, I gotta put that in the calendar, but I walk through the week now being very proactive and when I do have those evenings with Megan, instead of talking about the schedules. We actually get to connect Meygan: and have fun together. ’cause we Casey: already talked about all the transactional stuff. Yep. We’ve talked about the logistics of life Meygan: and we say it cuts conflict, 50%. Oh, easy for every couple. Easy. And, and honestly, aj, we fight if we don’t do our weekly marriage business meeting, because then that word means we’re not aligned. And wait, you said you’d be home at six? Well, no, I said seven 30. Well, we didn’t talk about it, so that’s why we are. Adamant every Sunday night after the kids go to bed, well, now they’re teenagers even when the kids are up. Um, when they were little, it was after they went to bed. We, we talk about it and there’s something that’s a little [00:14:00] controversial on that worksheet, but we schedule sex. We’re adamant boo the kids for scheduling sex. And we always tell people this, if you are having spontaneous sex and both you and your spouse are satisfied with the quality and the quantity. Then you don’t need to schedule sex, but if one of you is wanting it more or you feel like it’s not happening ’cause you’re so busy, which. People probably look at us and think, well, you work together and you’re talking about marriage. You have all the time in the world to have sex. Even we struggle to find time. Like we’re busy. Yeah. I worked like a 12 hour day yesterday. We didn’t have sex, so that’s why we schedule it. You know what, Casey: tomorrow’s though, babe. Meygan: I know. Hump day. Hump day. Wednesday night. Our kids Wednesday, our kids go to youth group every Wednesday night. Guess who’s having sex? So don’t come and knocking on our door by the Wednesday. So Casey: we put, we put in the calendar nap time. Nap nap time. It stands for Naughty and Playful. Meygan: Oh, that’s hilarious. Yes. The way Casey: the kids, if they see the calendar, they’re like, oh, it’s just nap time. Okay. Meygan: We don’t wanna, we don’t wanna put like sexy time and then our teenagers are like, Ew, [00:15:00] gross. I remember though, this is a funny like, side note that our daughter, she um, like did catch our phone when she was eight and she’s like, why are you taking a nap at nine o’clock at night? AJ: Oh my gosh. So bed. Um, because Meygan: moms all the AJ: things when your kids grow up and they’re Meygan: gonna be like, oh my gosh, I know. Yeah. They’re gonna hear this and Casey: they’re gonna be like, ah, Meygan: yes. But yeah, so we even schedule sex. And I think that what’s really cool about it, and obviously you can tell we’re passionate about this, is that we schedule doctor’s appointments, dentist visits, oil changes. Mm-hmm. Meygan: Uh, podcasts, like being a guest on a podcast was in our calendar with a reminder because it’s a priority for us, right? Yeah. It’s, our brain is our largest sex organ. Yeah. So if we go into marriage thinking and sex, wow, this is something I get to do. Like I get to put this on my calendar and I get to prioritize it. And then Casey on Wednesdays is so much more nice and thoughtful and true foreplay all day long. Like, I mean, but it’s Casey: Tuesday and I’m already thinking about Wednesday. Meygan: Yeah. And I’m, yeah, and I’m I, and it’s funny ’cause [00:16:00] they, people say, well, gosh, doesn’t it feel so like forced? I’m thinking again though, if your brain is your largest sex organ and you’re going. Into it feeling that, yes. But after we enjoy sex, we’ve never been like, well, that wasn’t worth it. Of course. We’re like, why don’t we schedule it more? Yep. AJ: I’ve been reading, um, the book, it’s an oldie but a goodie, um, what to say when you talk to yourself by Shad Helmstetter. And one of the things that I’m constantly reminded of, ’cause it’s all about positive self-talk and all that, our entire company is reading the book, um, as our Q1 book of the quarter. And it was a great reminder to me. It’s like we can train our brain, right? Yeah. And we can reframe, rewire, uh, we can condition ourselves and our brain is gonna naturally react to whatever we feed it the most. Right, exactly. And a lot of that is routines and habits. And it’s like back to scheduling, right? It’s like, it, it does become this, uh, muscle [00:17:00] memory of like, oh no, this isn’t just in my schedule. It’s not so, you know. Non-intimate because it’s, oh, it’s in my calendar. It’s like, no. It becomes a part of muscle memory of like your body starts to know like, Hey, every Wednesday, like this is coming. Right? There’s all those natural things that start to happen, uh, that make it less. I don’t know. Scheduled per se. Yeah. Yes. Uh, but it’s, it’s the, it’s whatever I tell people all the time, it’s like, whatever gets me to do the thing I’m supposed to do is worth me doing the thing to get me to do the thing I’m supposed to do. There you go. Meygan: Yes. Right. Whatever. It’s in marriage. We are advocates for having a shared calendar. Yeah. And putting anything you need to mm-hmm. With reminders. Text My Spouse a flirty text. Put it in your phone. Yeah. That’s okay. If it doesn’t come natural to you, then make it, make it habit of it to put it in your phone to remind you. Casey: Well, and aj, I, I wanna actually want to, uh, kinda riff on that concept of having the right mindset that leads us to successful relationships because, you know, um. [00:18:00] For, for your listeners. We’re all entrepreneurs. We all actually have these two essential mindsets that Megan and I have kind of sussed out that like creates successful marriages. And the first one is curiosity. So as an entrepreneur, we walk into the marketplace and we go. What is a problem I can solve? What kind of gifts and talents do I bring to the marketplace? And how can I solve a problem such that I can make a profit, earn a living, you know, sustain my family? And there’s a lot of curiosity behind that because you try, a marketing effort doesn’t work. Meygan: What do you Casey: do? Let’s get curious. Why didn’t it work? Why didn’t Meygan: it work? Let’s, let’s, let’s, Casey: let’s try a different way. That didn’t work. Let’s try a different way. Meygan: Constant AB testing. Yeah. Casey: I mean, I think marriage 365, we, we felt called, we knew that God had called us. There was so many different, like, like iterations of the clouds parting and it said something about marriage for us and we were like, well, what do we do? [00:19:00] What do we do next? We got curious and I think when we come to our relationship. We’re very curious when we first start dating our partner. Mm-hmm. Casey: Right across the table. And you’re looking at this person just like enamored and like you’re just like, who is this person? Tell me your hopes and your dreams, your desires, where you wanna go in life. What’s your childhood like? Tell, tell me everything. ’cause I want to know, and while you’re asking all these great questions. What happens is you’re communicating without communicating it. I desire you. Mm. I Casey: I wanna totally pursue you. Totally. I wanna know more about you. And that right there, that fuels attraction. I. Okay, so what happens is then we get married and then we get stuck in the routines and the wash, rinse, repeat of the weeks go by and we stop getting curious. Yeah, and it’s not Meygan: intentional. No. We’re not waking up purposefully saying, I don’t wanna know your heart. [00:20:00] We just get busy or distracted, or we turn on the tv rather than turn towards each other and curiosity. We should never stop being curious about our spouse, their hopes, their dreams, their fears, what’s going on in their world because. We change, we evolve as humans, but also we need to continue to get curious about ourselves. Ooh, gosh, why did I respond that way? Ooh, when my husband said this, I got triggered. What is going on inside of my heart? Yeah. So curiosity isn’t just about the other person, it’s also about you as a couple and you yourself. Casey: Yeah, and I, I use, I like to use the image of a lattice in a vine. Okay. If curiosity is the vine that kind of crawls all over and you know, finds these little nooks and crannies The second, second mindset is intentionality. And intentionality is the lattice that holds the vine together. Mm-hmm. Casey: Because again, as entrepreneurs, we realize if we wanna sustain a business, we have to be intentional. Going back to being [00:21:00] proactive, right? Mm-hmm. To weekly marriage, business meeting. Could you imagine Rory? I’m sorry, aj, uh, if you walked in. To your, to brand builders and you were like, okay guys, this week everybody just do really good work and just, just go out there and do great work. And And you didn’t give them a plan. You didn’t tell goals. Yeah. It just would be chaos. It would be chaos. And that to me is, you know, we walk into building a business very intentional by learning and growing. Hiring coaches, hiring you guys, right? When we launched our book, we hired you guys because you guys were gonna give us the structure on the plan, how to launch a bestseller. We Meygan: needed a plan, we needed next steps. We had no idea what we were doing. Right? And you provided that. Casey: And so aj, like the same thing happens, is like we walk into relationship relationships. We stop being intentional. Meygan: Yeah. We were intentional when we were dating. I mean, you [00:22:00] know, if, if. Rory didn’t initiate a date. Oh yeah. Meygan: Right. You’d been like, snooze fest. Something’s wrong with this guy. You know? Like he’s not being intentional. Like if he, if you were on a date and he was kinda like, yeah, whatever you wanna do, like whatever. And he was really passive. You’d be so turned off by it. We’re so intentional when we’re dating and again. We get married. It’s not that we intentionally wake up to not be intentional. It happens. We get busy, we build resentment of the kids, get in the way, whatever the reasons are. But intentionality provides that structure. Like the weekly marriage business meeting would be a great example. Casey: Yeah. Otherwise, what happens is we just kind of have a slow drift, and I think that’s probably the most dangerous and maybe most common thing that we see in marriage is. We started off with a goal, with intention, with curiosity. Mm-hmm. And then just slowly we, we, we get off one or two degrees and the months go by and we don’t really see like the damaging [00:23:00] effects. Meygan: Yeah. Casey: But then when you compound that with the months and then the years, and then what we’re seeing now is when, when people start to empty nest, they’re looking at their partner and they’re like, we did all of this life together. Meygan: Yeah. Have Casey: roommates. Meygan: We raised our children well. Casey: Yep. Meygan: But I don’t even know you. I don’t know if I even like you anymore. And that’s why the empty nest phase is now the second most common time for couples to divorce. So the number one is year four to 10. So when the kids are little, really high demand. Yeah, just really difficult. Right. We’ve all been there. And then the second time is, is empty nesting. So that’s telling us something that couples are slowly growing apart. Casey: So we’re, we’re trying to be out in the society, bang the pan pots and pans going, Hey, Meygan: hey, hey, don’t do that again. Going back to they don’t need the therapy. Like I maybe, maybe some people do with some severe trauma and things like that. Please go if you’ve got that. But the majority of couples actually just need really good tools. Hmm. AJ: Yeah. So I would love to talk about that. Like, and I know that we can’t cover all of it, but if you guys were to say [00:24:00] like, Hey, these are the. Two to three tools that will revolutionize your marriage. What would those be? Uh, Casey: well, the, the weekly marriage business meeting. Yeah. That’s about, that’s we, we just, that one. That’s absolutely number one. We get the most feedback from that, that couples say, this changed our marriage. Yeah. Meygan: The second one would actually be asking open-ended questions. Oh. Which Casey: is Meygan: our book that came out in 2024. Um, there’s basically a question a day and. This is supposed to spark, um, really great conversations about everything. There’s fun questions. There’s deep thought questions. There’s self-awareness questions, questions about money, boundaries. What, what you do? Sex. Sex, yes. But the goal is that couples, just like when you were dating, you talked about. All these things and found each other interesting that you would continue the conversation. And so, um, it’s interesting actually, ’cause I’m not sure if you know, we actually self-published our book back in 2018. [00:25:00] We’ve always had something called connecting Questions. That’s what we call ’em, connecting Questions that Marriage 365. And we’re like, what if we put ’em in a book and we made one a day? Perfect. Our brands Marriage 365, like this is a no brainer. Perfect. And I remember telling Casey like, okay, what’s our personal goal? Making goals, right? It’s like, okay, if we sell 5,000 copies in our lifetime, like we did a great job as a self publisher. Remember, books Casey: don’t do that. Meygan: We sold 5,000 copies. In three months. Yeah. Meygan: And we were like, okay, we’re onto something. And 5,000 copies turned into 50,000 copies. And then just a little company called Penguin Random House, heard about it, uh, back in 2024, and they said, Hey, we’d love to buy it and update it and revise it. I love that. It’s been a huge, huge, amazing blessing. But what I love again is it’s a tool. It’s a tool for a husband or wife to just open up. And ask the question of the day. If you don’t like the question, flip to a different question. Yeah. You know that that’s okay. But that I would say [00:26:00] is a non-negotiable if I were to say the weekly marriage business meeting, asking open-ended questions, you know. AJ when, I love Casey: that, when hurting, when we were hurting in our marriage. It’s not like I woke up and I was like, I just don’t care about Megan. I really did care about her. I just didn’t know how. Mm. And I, and when I coaching a lot of husbands, the desire is always there. Mm mm Casey: I just have to know that like the desire is always there. It’s just the know-how. And so I, you know, I think a lot of the tools that we, we build and we work through and we teach are tools that we look at. You know, poor Casey, Megan struggling, didn’t have a guy to mentor. You know, we didn’t have a healthy family upbringing. Like my mom’s been married six times. Um, so, and be, and be fact between both sets of parents, we have 12 marriages. So it’s Meygan: a, it’s crazy. Wow. We have a model’s a lot to, Casey: to work off of, and. I wish I could have given this book [00:27:00] to, to that struggling couple because then even in the midst of the hurt, we would’ve had a guide to, to talk and connect. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, AJ: I’m just curious to hear from you. Um, ’cause I think, you know, if, you know, kind of in this entrepreneur conversation, right? If we run our house, like we run our business, like everyone who’s listening, like, just imagine if you didn’t have team meetings. Yeah, exactly. Like imagine if you didn’t have a list of goals for the year or a budget, or you didn’t talk to your team and you, you didn’t ask questions. Or what if they didn’t ask questions? Yeah. Like could you imagine how well things would not be going? Yeah. If we did those things as entrepreneurs, as business people. But even if you’re not an entrepreneur of just going like, imagine in your work. If there was never a meeting Yeah. Or a plan or got am I imagine being onboarded, right? Mm-hmm. When I think about getting married, right? Imagine being onboarded to a new [00:28:00] company with no onboarding. Yeah. Meygan: It’s like, AJ: here you go. Yeah. But that’s what we do in marriage. Meygan: Yes. Right? AJ: Yes. So many of us, and I love what you said about the book, ’cause I think the book is really important of like just helping people have conversations and I would just, what I want, the question I have for you is. What do you think gets in the way of couples talking to each other? Hmm. And asking questions and. You know, it’s like, I just think to my, ’cause I even use myself as an example. It’s like I talk all day long, right? Yes. I ask questions. I’ve in meetings all day long and often, like when it is just me and Rory, I’m like, so what do you wanna talk about? Yeah, yeah. You know? Yeah. Um, now part of that is because I’ve been listening to him talk and he’s been listening to me talk all day. But, uh, even without that. You know, there is saying we work together. Yes, I get it. I mean, Casey: if we work together all day long, it’s not like at the end of the day, like, tell me about your day. Yeah. I’m seeing I was sitting next to you all day long. Don’t AJ: you [00:29:00] know, weren’t you listening? I told you all day. Yes. Meygan: Yeah. Which is Casey: funny ’cause I mean, if you find us on a date, we have our book next to us. Meygan: I mean, that’s what’s, that’s what’s so, so I think what stands in the way is, let’s just talk about some, some really simple, obvious ones. Busyness. Mm. People are busy. You know, um, if it’s a child-centered marriage where the kids dictate your schedules again, and you’re not doing a weekly marriage business meeting, yeah, you’re probably never going to really have that time to connect because you’re gonna have to talk about the logistics and you’re trying to just go, how was work and what’s for dinner, which are just really boring questions day after day. Um, I think another thing actually that a big one that we’re seeing is resentment. Years and years of, you haven’t taken me on a date. Um, my wife’s been nagging at me, whatever’s going on. Um, yeah, I feel like you don’t initiate sex. There’s a lot of really big hurts and people don’t realize that Basically what resentment is, is unforgiveness. So our spouse did something or said something. We have pain now. Right. It, it hurt and we have that choice to forgive or to let it go. [00:30:00] And if we don’t forgive. It becomes resentment, which then now that hurt has taken root in our heart and in our thoughts, and so you could use to compartmentalize it up in a garage and it’s kind of stored away. But now the resentment. Like when you sit on the couch. Yeah. You’re like, I don’t really wanna talk to my husband. I don’t really wanna talk. I dunno if I really like, they really hurt me. And resentment, definitely unresolved issues, resentment, things like that. And that in away, and that’s sad. That’s sad Casey: too, because one of the things we fight for is trying to teach people the tools on how to actually repair your relationship after you’ve heard it. Yeah. Because Casey: we’ve all made mistakes. We’re all gonna make mistakes, we’re all gonna hurt each other. If you have a tool on how to repair the relationship. Meygan: Then, you know how, and so then I think kind of what you said, aj, of like, okay, I don’t really know what to ask. I genuine genuinely believe that after a long day of working the kids, it’s really hard to come up with a question. So if you’re listening and you’re like, I, I want to do that, this sounds amazing. Don’t feel bad, Casey and I are just like, they’re with you again. Which is [00:31:00] why we use our. Own book. I love that. And, and so that’s why we wanted to provide a tool for couples to say on the go, if someone travels, take a picture of a few questions to, to answer. When you’re over the pool, you know, at the pool or at a work meeting, wherever. When you have that time to connect, now you have a question and you don’t have to be creative in the moment. And, and, and wing it. And it’s kind of like we talk about this with, um, on our weekly marriage, business meeting, meal planning. Have you ever done this where you’re both tired, it’s six o’clock at night, everyone’s hungry, and you’re like, what should we make for dinner? Um, what typically happens? Okay, sounds like we’re gonna go to Chick-fil-A, right? Like, don’t cook it. We don’t have anything. It’s hard to be creative. It’s like stuff Casey: of my nightmares right there. I know it’s, I’m hungry. And then you look at the pantry, it’s empty, like, ugh. Meygan: Or it feels empty and you’re like, I don’t know what to make. It’s kind of the same concept of I wanna connect with you. We’re sitting on the couch or we’re taking a walk. But it’s been a long day and I can’t come up with something from scratch. AJ: I don’t have the energy to even think about it. No decision Casey: fatigue, right? It’s real. AJ: Yes. [00:32:00] Yeah. But you know, it’s true because it’s like we say, uh, we say this in our house all the time, that, you know, fatigue makes cowards of us all. Mm-hmm. And it’s AJ: like that whole concept of, hey, when we’re so tired that we can’t think, we can’t step into a space of being creative or going out on a limb or doing something that feels. You know, even the slight, slight bit of hard because it’s like I’m just tired. And what we, you know, it’s like we get, we, we tell people at our house that we get tary, right? That’s tired and angry. Meygan: Oh, AJ: who’s hangry? I like that. I’ve never Meygan: heard that before. I mean, I’ve heard hangry, but I’ve never heard tary. I, we might have to steal that and use that. AJ: And it’s like, that’s, and it’s mainly because, uh. Roy Vaden gets Ry. Oh. Oh, okay. Okay. Meygan: Alright. Casey Fasten gets hangry, let me tell you. Ooh. Yeah. AJ: But it’s, it’s like concept of like, Hey, it’s like I just had, and I, I, I don’t know, but it’s like I at least think in an [00:33:00] era, in a world where Bo most homes have both spouses working. Yeah. At least some, even if it’s not a full-time, 40 hour endeavor, it’s like there’s just more opportunity of like. I don’t know. I didn’t think about it. It was busy today. Meygan: Yeah. AJ: Um, and that creates that Meygan: Yeah. Uh, AJ: kind of rolling, uh, issue there. Yeah. Um, so I, I love this conversation and I kind of fast forwarded into some of like these tips and tactical things that I’d also like to just take a step back for a second and be like, how’d y’all get here? Yeah. Right. And I think this is a little bit of the story of your personal brand and, uh, all of the content. It’s like I imagine, uh, as most good things, there was a problem I. Yep. And then you guys found a solution to the problem with her, with her. Meygan: I thought you were the problem. No, you were the problem. You were the problem. What? How do I fix my husband? Uh, I almost got that tattoo. No, it really genuinely came from this idea when we, so we fell in love. It took [00:34:00] us two years to fall in love and get married. It took us three years to destroy our marriage, unfortunately. And it took about four to five years to rebuild our marriage. And as we were rebuilding and healing our marriage, we were extremely disappointed. That there was a lack of marriage resources out there. Talk about, you said getting curious, like mm-hmm. There’s gotta be a solution to this and we could not afford ongoing therapy. Mm-hmm. Meygan: But what in the world is missing? I mean, this is not only a mass market, but how many people get married in their lifetime? And the marriage books again will tell you, you guys should communicate, you should forgive. Okay. But how do you forgive someone that you literally hate? Hmm. And you feel it. I mean, I, I gen you mentioned it. Yeah. We, we really had hatred towards each other. We had so much resentment. And Casey: let me just, let me just say also too, we were going to church and we were being told what to do. Like you should apologize, you should forgive. I. But no one ever told us how to do it. Yep. Mm. So then we’re like, I’m sorry. Yeah. I, I forgive you. [00:35:00] Yeah. I forgive you. Meygan: Yeah. Moving on. Moving on. And, and we still didn’t feel it. So it really, marriage 365, I mean, there’s a whole huge bigger. Backstory behind it. But that was one of the main motivators was we started becoming problem solvers. I’m a major problem solver, fixer. So Casey’s actually the more empathetic one in our marriage when we argue, thank you babe. Where I tend to go to like solutions based and being like fix it mode. Like, okay, let’s solve this. So I kind, we kind of both just dove in and that that whole idea of the weekly marriage business meeting came from, wait a second. Businesses are organized. We could do that. Why don’t we make a marriage one? I mean, that’s all it was. It was like, let’s do it. And we sat there and we wrote on a like a napkin one day and let’s figure this out. And so we started problem solving and of course all of our friends and family saw us and we’re like, okay, you guys should have been divorced by now. Yeah, Casey: the pool. Pool. Meygan: Yeah. Like we had bets on it that you guys were gonna be a done. They’re like, the fact that you’re laughing and like each other and fell in love is not only a miracle, [00:36:00] but. Yeah, you are genuinely changing and you need to share this with the world. I remember one of Casey’s best friends went to him and said, you need to stop He was a nonprofit fundraiser for a long time, and he, and he said, you’re in the wrong business, buddy. You need to be helping marriages. AJ: I love that. That’s so good. Yeah, and that’s, that’s Casey: when we started posting stuff on Instagram. It was like the early days, and it just, it got traction really quick. Now, I, I will tell you, aj, like if, if there were stories. Of our marriage that were so embarrassing that I was like, that story will never see the light of day because it was, it just like bad. We just were so ashamed. Yeah, so, so much shame around it. And it’s funny because those exact stories. Are the stories that people connect with most always. They, they see that always when they’re like, oh, well, maybe they see it and they’re like, well, at least we’re not as bad as Casey Meghan. Jeez. Meygan: So, you know, a [00:37:00] Facebook and an Instagram post then became, well, let’s try it. Write an ebook, and, you know, let’s do, um, you know. Uh, what else did we do? Well, let’s do retreat, let’s do coaching. I mean, and then we started getting training. We did training premarital training, premarital, and we, we Casey: had a premarital course and then we start, yeah, started coaching and one thing led to another. Yes. And again, it was just like the need testing different things. Meygan: Testing, testing, testing all the time. Testing. AJ: Okay. I wanna pause right here ’cause I need everyone to hear this on a personal brand. Level, and I think this is so important for everyone who’s listening, um, this isn’t just an episode about marriage. This is also, this is also a message about business entrepreneurship and personal branding. Because any good business, any good brand first solves a problem. Meygan: Yep. AJ: Right? And how do you solve a problem? It’s like you’ve experienced it yourself. Right. And then you, you figured it out. You compassionate about it. Other people see it. And I, and I love the organic nature of [00:38:00] not just your story, but some of the, the my favorite brands, um, that I’ve encountered, not just in brand builders group, but outside of it. It’s like, uh, this happened accidentally. This happened because we had a problem. We solved the problem. Then we realized, well, if we had this problem, there must be other people who suffer from this. But it wasn’t just that you acknowledged it. You did something about it. Yes. Right. And I think that’s what’s so important of like if you feel like this calling on your heart of like, hey, like there’s something out there that there is. Right? Yeah. And, and it’s there for a reason. And you guys are a great, amazing testament to like. It can come from anything. Mm-hmm. Right. It can come from like the valleys of a really distressed marriage to the reconciliation of that, of going, okay, well, clearly there’s a problem with this in our country and in this world. What can we do about it? And then. From there, you test, and I think that’s the [00:39:00] most important thing I want people to hear is that you don’t have to have it figured out the first time. Oh, we had no idea what we were doing, figured out the first time. Yeah. So you guys, you said you did an ebook, then you did premarital, then you did marriage coaching. It’s like. Yep. What was that process like to figure out what, what is our home base like? What’s the thing? Can I Meygan: say one thing and then you go for it? I think one thing that Casey and I will always stand on is that we are never afraid to fail. I. Mm. We will always try something and we don’t look at it as a failure. We look at it as a teachable moment. So let’s do it. We’re gonna test it, see how people respond to it. And while it may not have gone what we would’ve liked it to go and or whatever that looks, the response wasn’t what we wanted. We always do either a survey or we do like an internal one to say, what worked, what didn’t work? What needs to continue? Is this worth doing again? Right. Casey: And I would say that, I mean, our faith is a backstop to that. To know that God’s gonna take care of us [00:40:00] no matter what. And I, I find it in this, especially that we had a, a, a down year last year, and it’s just kind of an interesting season to reevaluate where we’re heading. And there’s this tension of, of recognizing that God’s called us to do this and there’s a, an act of faith. Like I, I, I consider Marriage 365 as, as Meg Casey, and Megan’s long obedience in a single direction. Hmm. You know, we’ve Casey: watched a lot of people come and go. Over the past almost 15 years. Um, but we’re still here. Mm-hmm. And I will say in the marriage space, yeah. You have to be called. ’cause it’s really tough work to walk through people through their most traumatic experiences of life. Like, it, it is not flashy. What do we say? It’s, you’re not getting rich or famous doing this one, this work. Yeah. This is, this is tough in the trenches type of work. But you know, at the same time, like I, we want to. Grow and scale so that we have the largest amount of impact. And [00:41:00] there’s that tension of always holding both of those together. Mm-hmm. That I think we walk with. And that’s, that’s a day by day kind of thing that we’re, that we’re walking through. So. We do have like this backstop to say like, we are not afraid to fail ’cause God’s gonna take care of us. And he has called us and there have been times when things have failed miserably. I mean the, we need like five more podcasts to tell you all the, but. At the end of that day, we had to go, but God’s called us to this. Yeah. And we keep trying. Meygan: So tactically, how does that look? Yeah, it, it’s testing a lot on social media. That’s been a really big platform. We started in 2013, technically as a Facebook page. That’s how Marriage 365 started. Um, and then once, you know, you build an audience and you get them on your email list or your platform, whatever that is. You know, it was like, well, let’s try to write a blog and get people off of meta onto our platform. Right? And it was like, oh, we got a good response. Then it was, well now these people are on our, you know, email list. Let’s write an ebook and see if we can make [00:42:00] money for five bucks. Yeah. For five bucks. Well, it was back in 2013, right? Life was a lot different back then. It was, social media was really just, I mean, just Casey: Instagram really Meygan: booming. Well, no, we didn’t start Instagram until 2015, but, oh, that’s true. Yeah. And so, um, all that to say, we. I think that we had a vision board and we looked at all the different things and resources that we saw missing in the marriage world. Mm-hmm. Okay. In the marriage space and how could we be different because we are a different kind of a couple and how could we get our message out to people? And then again, just testing, testing, testing well and trying things and really. Uh, we’re also big on calling people, so that’s another thing. I know a lot of companies, they don’t like to call customer service those kind of calls, but we, Casey and Megan Caston, co-founders, Ofer, you will get a call from us sometimes if we’ve got your number and say, Hey, can I just ask you like, what did you think about that book? Or what did you think about that blog? And people are always shocked to hear from us, but we genuinely wanna know because guess who [00:43:00] we’re making the resources for? That’s AJ: right, mom. Yes. Meygan: We’re making it for them now. Now they’re helping us, but we don’t wanna stay in our own bubble and think, well, every couple’s gonna love this.