How to Nourish Your Relationship, Even in a Busy Life, with Ellen Dorian

Announcer: 

Welcome to The Lawyerist Podcast, a series of discussions with entrepreneurs and innovators about building a successful law practice in today’s challenging and constantly changing legal market. Lawyerist supports attorneys, building client-centered, and future-oriented small law firms through community, content, and coaching both online and through the Lawyerist Lab. And now from the team that brought you The Small Firm Roadmap and your podcast hosts 

Stephanie Everett (00:35): 

Hi, I’m Stephanie Everett. 

Zack Glaser (00:37): 

And I’m Zack. And this is episode 502 of the Lawyerist Podcast, part of the Legal Talk Network. Today, Stephanie talks with Ellen Dorian about helping entrepreneurs create a hot and healthy marriage. Hot and healthy. Stephanie, so what’s this? 

Stephanie Everett (00:53): 

Yeah, I met Ellen years ago, like pre pandemic. I think we decided around 2019 maybe. And she’s a business coach that works. She’ll talk about this. She primarily works with men on how to have healthy marriages because oftentimes people get focused on their business, and so they kind of forget about the other important relationships in their life. And so it was important to me that we kind of started this conversation. It’s new for us. I don’t think it’s a topic we’ve covered on the podcast, but in the realm of healthy owner, part of being a healthy owner is being maybe a healthy spouse or partner or person to other people in your life. 

Zack Glaser (01:35): 

I think there are probably a lot of attorneys out there, not anybody listening to this, but a lot of attorneys out there who are probably not doing a great job of communicating with their significant other. And we could all probably use a little bit of help and information and encouragement and things like that. So this G-rated go into a close the office door. 

Stephanie Everett (02:02): 

I mean, here’s the deal. I just want to put this out in the intro right now because we do talk about a healthy marriage and part of that are some intimate things that happen and Ellen’s not afraid to go there. So I think we kept it pretty clean in the sense of it’s not going to be, it’s me, you guys, so come on. This was pressing my boundaries probably a little bit. 

Zack Glaser (02:25): 

Well, that’s probably good for healthy owner here at Lawyerist as well. 

Stephanie Everett (02:29): 

It for sure was, but maybe you might not want to listen with the kids in the car. If that’s what you’re doing right now, save this one for another time. But I think I’m really excited about this episode. You’ll hear me. I pushed myself a little bit, maybe revealed some things about myself and my marriage. I took some really great stuff away from this conversation though it has stuck with me and it’s something, it’s a part of my life that just like everybody else I know I could do better. And she gave me some really cool ideas that I was like, yeah, I don’t think about that part of my life maybe as much as I should if I’m being honest. 

Zack Glaser (03:09): 

Well, this is an easy right in front of you for whoever’s listening way to kind of dip your toe into this. At the very least, you don’t have to go get a book, you don’t have to go get, this is right in front of you right now, so might as well stick around and listen to and push yourself a little bit. 

Stephanie Everett (03:29): 

Yeah, have some fun with it. I mean, as always would love to hear what people are thinking and it’s a little different for us, but I think it’s definitely worth the topic’s worth exploring, and I hope you will listen and maybe share some feedback on the episode. Obviously, I mean, any episode we love to hear, but I am curious what people are going to think about this one, especially my husband. He said he is going to listen to this one. 

Zack Glaser (03:58): 

Good, good. Alright, without further ado, today’s podcast is brought to us by Omnizant you’ll hear more of my conversation with them here shortly, and then we’ll roll right into Stephanie’s conversation with Ellen. Hey, y’all, Zack again, and I’m here with Emily Brady from Omnizant, which is a comprehensive digital marketing service for lawyers. Emily, thanks for being with me today. 

Emily Brady (04:25): 

Thank you for having me back on the show. I’m excited to be here. 

Zack Glaser (04:28): 

So Emily is the director of SEO over at Omnizant, and we are talking local SEO, which is, that’s Google business profile and the maps and all that stuff. That’s right under the cheaters, which is the ads, the people who are skipping to the front of the line, but it’s that area that is Google’s version of your business kind of representation of your business, right? 

Emily Brady (04:55): 

Yeah, exactly. So local SEO is for the sake of this conversation, right, a local SEO is going to refer to ranking in Google Maps, whether that be from a desktop computer or if someone just opens up your Google Maps app on your phone, that’s a different algorithm than Google uses in its traditional rankings. 

Zack Glaser (05:15): 

And so when I’m going to Google Maps and I’m looking something up, I go to it, I find my hairdresser or my dentist or whatever, and then I click on them and a page opens up and a lot of information about them is right there and reviews and where they are and their phone number and their website, and as much information as Google can give me to keep me just on Google, that’s what we’re talking about, right? 

Emily Brady (05:39): 

Exactly. Yeah. So that information is, that’s business’s Google listing or their Google business profile, and that’s a listing that you can claim it’s free, and it functions kind of as that first point of contact with potential customers who find you through maps and it links to your website. But Google’s objective with that really seems to, to keep people on Google Maps, they don’t actually need to visit your website to convert. They can just call you there. So it’s a great source of leads, right? And that’s why people want to rank there. It’s a great place to get that type of visibility. 

Zack Glaser (06:13): 

It is functionally different from just that search engine click where it’s like, okay, Lawyerist dot com, click on that and we go to Lawyerist dot com. It’s kind of a functionally different interface. And so if we’re not using it, then we’re missing an entry point into people interacting with us. 

Emily Brady (06:34): 

Exactly. And even from Google’s perspective, from a customer perspective, yes, that’s another place that they can find you. But from Google’s perspective too, it actually uses different factors to rank you there than your website. So even if your website’s ranking but you haven’t engaged with your Google listing, you’re missing out on visibility. And there are different strategies or tactics you can do on Google Maps to hopefully increase that visibility and be a little bit more competitive there. 

Zack Glaser (07:03): 

So I’m a lawyer in a specific town in Tennessee. How do I start to approach my Google listing there, my Google business listing? 

Emily Brady (07:13): 

So as far as optimization is concerned and how you want to really get in front of the people who are searching for businesses like yours, one really important factor, and this is a primary function of Google Mass is you’ve ever used it, is getting reviews, having people leave feedback for you on your listing. Even with reviews, it can be the, sure, the star rating is important, but it’s also the velocity, the recency of those reviews. Are you responding to those reviews? And even what is the content of the review? Is the person describing their experience with you and maybe talking about the type of case that you helped ’em with, all of those types of details. Google can see all of that data and takes it into consideration when trying to figure out if you are relevant for another search. 

Zack Glaser (07:56): 

So it goes as deep as the content of that review. So I represent particular, I do family law in Tennessee, and somebody says, this person did a great job on my divorce. Then Google would theoretically kind of think, well, it’s more likely this person is doing divorce work. 

Emily Brady (08:15): 

Exactly. And that helps Google understand how you’ve helped people in the past. So now you’re validating your own authority and experience within that specific practice area. 

Zack Glaser (08:26): 

So reviews obviously not easy to get sometimes for lawyers and not easy to ask sometimes for lawyers, but obviously they should be pushing that. What else are kind of the factors in bumping me up on the maps there? 

Emily Brady (08:39): 

So there are two more that I want to touch on just really quickly. One of ’em, you can’t control generally speaking, and the other one you can, so the one you can’t control but is a factor to take into consideration is proximity. So Google has a really strong bias for businesses that are close to the people searching, which means me too. Yeah, exactly. If you do happen to be getting a new office location or maybe branching out into a new city state, something like that, look for an office that’s centrally located, that’s located where your clients are located. So downtown tends to be a pretty good option in a lot of larger metropolitan areas, but I know for most law firms, moving offices is not going to be their first tactic that they’re going to execute. So something more important to take into consideration is actually the quality of your website. 

(09:27): 

So the algorithms between maps pack and ranking in those 10 blue links are different, but your website optimization does also influence your rankings and maps. So having high quality content, having a website that really breaks down what you do, how you’ve helped past clients and showcases your authority within whatever your practice area is, can also help you rank in the maps. And that’s because there’s that website link. That’s how people, they click on that website link and then they can visit your website if they need more information. And that’s directly tied to your site, it’s tied to your listing, Google understands that that’s the same entity. So when you are optimizing your website, keep in mind that that can also help your maps rankings too. 

Zack Glaser (10:10): 

So these things aren’t fundamentally opposed from each other. These are things that we want to be doing in tandem. 

Emily Brady (10:16): 

Yeah, aside from that too, just making sure that the thinking in terms of this listing is that’s like your business card. That’s going to be the first impression people get. Make sure that it’s filled out, you have great photos on it, all of that good stuff, adding your services or practice areas that can help too. It’s not going to impact rankings so much, but it can impact conversions. So that’s another way to get visibility and phone calls through your listing. 

Zack Glaser (10:41): 

And if I’m converting through there or if people are clicking on that and then calling me, then Google saying, Hey, we served them the right thing. 

Emily Brady (10:50): 

Exactly. Right. And that’s more business from a free tool that Google has provided to local businesses, including law firms. 

Zack Glaser (10:58): 

Okay, great. Obviously there’s a lot more to local SEO than what we’re able to get to in just six minutes. If people want to learn more, they can always go to Omnizant.com, they can get a quote. There’s a lot of educational resources on that website. And once again, that is Omnizant, O-M-N-I-Z-A-N t.com. Emily, thank you again for being with me. I always appreciate it. 

Emily Brady (11:22): 

Thank you so much for having me. 

Ellen Dorian (11:28): 

So hi, I am Ellen Dorian from the Passionate Partners Project and the host of Make More Love, which is a show for entrepreneurial men who are married and whose relationships are struggling because of the demands of their business. 

Stephanie Everett (11:43): 

And I love your show’s tagline, make more Love in your life and with your wife. That is lovely. 

Ellen Dorian (11:50): 

Exactly. Yeah. And that’s what most of my clients want is more love, more fun, more passion in their relationships and in their life in general. 

Stephanie Everett (12:01): 

And you and I met, oh gosh, back before the pandemic, that’s how everything gets stated these days. Back in 2019, we were at a conference together, and I’ll never forget everybody was going around saying who they coached. And when you said who you coached, it stuck with me forever. I was like, okay. Wow. And so I’m curious about, and I know you mostly focus on men, but I imagine this applies for the women business owners too, but why do business owners struggle with their relationships? What’s going on there? 

Ellen Dorian (12:33): 

And I’ll start because a lot of people have been asking me this question and it’s, do I only coach men? And is my relationship advice only for men? No, it’s really not. My advice is universal, but I made the podcast aimed strictly at men because I feel like they’re very underserved in the area of relationships and the modes of relationship help that we have really aren’t that comfortable for them. So I wanted to give an alternative, so I just want to get that out there. I actually covered it in one of my recent episodes too, because I’m getting a lot of questions. So to start, so why do people struggle in their relationships? And there’s a ton of reasons, but there are three reasons that I think really contribute. One of them is we really don’t have a good model for what relationships are supposed to be. So we get into these relationships and we don’t know what we’re getting into. We really don’t. When we get into a long-term relationship, we really have no idea what it’s supposed to be like, what’s going to be expected of us, what it challenges to expect, or what problems we’re going to encounter or how to do anything. And we lock ourselves in for life. 

(13:47): 

So it’s a gigantic risk to start with. So that’s one reason is we don’t really know what to expect. The second thing is we really don’t have very good skills for it. It’s not like anybody really teaches us how to be in relationships. And in particular, well, I shouldn’t say that. There are some religious groups that actually do premarital training, but for the most of us, we don’t actually start looking for help on relationships until our relationships are already in pretty deep trouble. So there’s not a lot to go on. And what are the models? It’s like starts with fairytales, adolescent fantasies, wedding vows, and then whatever we saw growing up, but they didn’t have any marriage instruction either. So everybody’s flying blind and we’re all following the blind people in our relationships. That’s the second reason. And then the third reason is more particular to business owners, and that is so when relationships get hard and we are good at something, we go toward the good thing. 

(14:47): 

So when we start to struggle at home, when the relationship starts to turn difficult and rocky and challenging, and then we go to work and everybody’s relying on us looking up to us, we have all the answers all the time, it’s very seductive to go there and to spend all of our time there. So we absent ourself from the relationship that we put ourselves in the place where we feel good, which causes even more trouble. And that comes down to that we don’t have good models for relationships to start with, and then we really don’t have a model for someone who has multiple competing top priorities. So those are the reasons that I think are the real contributing factors in the broadest sense for why relationships don’t work. And then there’s a bunch of things that branch out from that physical and mental health, a sense of belonging, a sense of abandonment, and those other kinds of psychological things come into play. So money is always a factor. Sex is always a factor. So there is a lot that goes into it, but if we look at those three top overriding reasons, that’s what I think contributes the most. 

Stephanie Everett (16:02): 

Yeah, there’s a reason that the phrase married to your business, or people often say, what is it? I’m the mistress of the business. 

Ellen Dorian (16:12): 

Yes, the business. So there was this amazing article in Inc. Magazine about 10 years ago, and it was an entrepreneur, and the quote was something like this that I married my wife and I loved her, but nothing could compare to the passion I felt for my business. So that’s pretty stark. I sure wouldn’t want to see my partner say anything like that in print. I don’t know about you, but that would not make me happy. But it was about their climb out, their climb back from having really lost their relationship to the business. And a lot of times that happens because we as business owners don’t have good business skills. I know this is something that you work with your lawyers. We don’t have the skills to make sure that the business is not running us. And so the business is pulling on us all the time as business owners all the time. It’s very demanding. And so if we don’t have good skills and tools to make the business work for us, then our relationships really have no shot at competing with that. 

Stephanie Everett (17:21): 

And I know we often are talking to our business owners about how they have to be intentional with their business, but from listening to your show, I know that you also say, but we have to bring that intentionality to our relationships as well. We can’t just sweep ’em to the side or think they’ll just take care of themselves. They actually require our time and our energy and our attention. 

Ellen Dorian (17:42): 

Exactly. Yes, absolutely. What I’d like to say about that is when you’re learning how to run a business, I started out as a business coach. That was my initial practice, and I was working with owners of commercial construction businesses, so all men, I was meeting with them in person and I was helping them with five things, strategic planning, resource management, best practices, innovation and incremental improvement. Those were the five things that I was helping them with. I’m imagining that what you do with your clients is very similar. 

Stephanie Everett (18:17): 

Absolutely. 

Ellen Dorian (18:18): 

And so not even over time, pretty much right away, it started to become clear that the big blockers in these people’s lives weren’t business problems. They were personal problems and relationship problems were right at the top of the list. And so we started to work on those in the business coaching sessions because it was interfering with their ability to feel successful in the business. And what I quickly realized is you could use those same five concepts and you could use them to grow your relationship. And so that’s what we started to do. We applied those five concepts to the relationship, and that’s the high level of what I do with my clients right now. 

Stephanie Everett (18:59): 

Yeah, I mean, yeah, it sounds like that would work. And I’m just kind of curious, how would one even get started? Where do you begin if this is, maybe people are listening right now and they’re like, yeah, my relationship, I mean, yeah, it could use a little lightning up. We need, maybe it needs something, some fire sparked. How do you even start down that path? 

Ellen Dorian (19:22): 

Yeah, the three pillars I think are the most important things to start. Now, I’ve studied a lot of relationships and what I’ve seen in all the successful ones is that they’re locked together in three ways. They have a common purpose. They are very intentionally present with each other, and they have a perpetual passion. And what I mean about that is that the passion that they express for each other refuels itself. So it’s self fueling. And those three things, they have things they love to do together, they focus on each other, and that just keeps feeding through. So those are the three things. If you have common purpose, intentional presence, and perpetual passion in your relationship, those are the end goals. Just like what you would have is cashflow, profit and efficiency in the business. It’s the same idea. And so how would you go about doing those things and getting those things in your relationship? 

(20:16): 

It really depends. I’ll say it depends on where your relationship is right now. So people, when they come to me, they’re usually in one of a few different places. One is that the relationship is basically, okay, it’s boring. They don’t have enough sex, they don’t have enough excitement, they don’t have enough vacation, they don’t have enough together time, but it’s basically sound. And for those people, I ask them to focus on in the business terms, best practices and innovation, and we’ll talk what those are. If the relationship is more strained, if they’re really at a stalemate, I call this loveless limbo. So you look like a couple to the outside world, but you’re really living two separate lives under one roof. If that’s the case and it’s cold, but it’s a cold war, not a hot war, then if it’s a cold war, then we start more on strategic planning and facilities and resource management. 

(21:13): 

And if it’s a hot war, then we really have a, that’s a different animal. And so there’s a whole separate set of skills that need to go into that. But that also starts with a strategic plan. So when I say a strategic plan for your relationship, what do I mean by that? And what I mean is just what you would do with a business. Take some time out for the two of you and you talk about you get together. If you have kids, you get a babysitter, you maybe go away overnight to a hotel, sit down and talk about what you want to get out of your relationship in the long term. So you and I know from the group that we’re in, so we kind of look at it on a three year scale. What do we want to see in three years? What do we want to see 12 months from now? 

(21:56): 

And what do we need to do on a quarterly basis in order to make the one year plan work? So I suggest doing the same thing strategic planning wise. The next thing is that resource allocation, resources and logistics. And when I talk about that, it’s what I suggest is a weekly planning meeting between the couple. You pick a time that is a non-negotiable time, it’s sacred time, you set it for me and my husband, it’s Friday afternoons. And that is when we talk about all the logistics of making the relationship work. So who’s going to take the car in? Who’s got a deadline, who’s got plans, who’s going away on a trip, a business trip or vacation? Who’s doing what in the next week? And by both understanding and knowing that it helps us be supportive for each other, be there for each other, be present for each other, and also sets our expectations. 

(22:53): 

So last week I had to be a guest on a podcast in Australia, so I had to get up at four in the morning on Thursday morning. And so my husband knew that, and so he didn’t make any plans for me to go, we’re going to go see Dune too. We didn’t make them for Wednesday night. So that’s the idea. So that kind of setting of expectations for each other. And if you do this every week, there are two benefits. One is you are in step together, you’re on the same page, what you need to do. And the other aspect of that is it opens up time for communication about other things during what I call best practices, which is dedicated time together to talk about the deeper issues of life and relationships and desires. So if you don’t do a weekly planning session, then every interaction you have with your partner during the week is likely to be a logistics discussion. 

(23:47): 

You wake up in the morning, the first thing you’re talking about is what do you have to do today as opposed to, what can I do to make your life beautiful today? What would be one thing that I could do that’s going to make you feel sexy today? Or any of the other deeper and more fun questions that you could be asking? Or maybe in 10 minutes you can do a lot in 10 minutes. I call it like a daily standup except that hopefully you’re not standing up. So what could you be doing with that 10 minutes if it wasn’t talking about how we’re going to get the car to the garage? So that’s why that weekly planning session is so important. And then that brings us to the daily, daily dedicated time. It doesn’t take a lot of time every day to make your relationship more passionate and more fun. 

(24:34): 

You can do that in five or 10 minutes a day, and people are surprised when I say that, but if you were to really focus on your partner with all other distractions out of the way for five or 10 minutes a day, that’s going to be a significant increase in the attention you put on your relationship. I guarantee it. If you were to add up all the time that you spend doing other things or have doing things or being distracted while you do things, 10 minutes a day of dedicated time is enough to keep the relationship strong and enough to make you want more. So you’ll want to put in the time to have more. Start with the 10 minutes. You could try hugging for 10 minutes, but I’ll tell you a 10 minute hug, that’s pretty advanced. That’s pretty advanced relationship training. Start with a one minute hug. 

(25:21): 

It’s a long, long time if you aren’t used to doing it. So start there. Yeah. So that’s your daily planning. And then the innovation or reinvention in the relationship context is your date night. And I recommend two date nights a month. And the reason I only say two is because when I say date night, I mean not a night with the kids, not a double date with a couple not going to your family’s house. This is you and your partner and engaged in some deeply connecting activity that fosters intimacy and fun and passion, and in a lot of cases leads to sex. And I’m not advocating you only have sex twice a month, but for a lot of couples, that would be a lot more than they have, especially if you’ve been together 10 years or so. So two date nights a month, and I recommend you plan one and your partner plans one and let each partner do it. And I have a dating framework that I can help people with that. That was actually my most recent podcast, master Date Nights, it was called. Oh, good. That teaches a framework for planning dates. It’s not just a list of date ideas, but I also do have my Love Bites newsletter, which has about maybe a hundred date night ideas. And I wrote that during the pandemic. So a lot of them are things you can do without even leaving the house. 

Stephanie Everett (26:51): 

Yeah, I haven’t heard that episode yet, but I want to check it out because I got to confess, I’ll just confess to everyone, we’ll be an open book here today. My husband and I often have these great intentions and we’ll have a date night and we’ll be like, well, let’s go out to dinner and we’ll go have a lovely dinner. And then if I’m being really honest, we’re kind of old. I feel like we’re older now because we get home and we’re like, oh, we’re so full. And now we don’t really feel like fooling around because, and then it just doesn’t really happen. And so we kind of joke with each other. We recognize that we have fallen into this habit that we’re like, man, that used to not be a problem in our younger age, I guess, but now, so now I’m like, maybe we don’t have dinner or we got to plan something different if that’s going to impede that special time that we need together. I mean, I think you would say we have to make this a part of our life of our relationship. 

Ellen Dorian (27:45): 

Yes, absolutely. And I will say, I think you have to plan. You have to plan for either dinner or other things. If other things are on the menu, then dinner needs to be light because it’s not just young people, it’s all people. It’s just that when you’re younger, you have a little bit more stamina to overcome it, and you also don’t have any other responsibilities. And so you kind of have to plan that as being one or the other. And it’s a good night for sushi, not so great for French food. Exactly, 

Stephanie Everett (28:16): 

Exactly. 

Ellen Dorian (28:19): 

If you’re tired, one of the things I talk about is if you want to do Netflix and chill, do Netflix and chill, but really do it. Don’t just show up on Friday night and expect night and chill, Netflix and Chill to happen. Plan in advance. Pick a movie in advance, choose the takeout in advance, do all those things so you aren’t sitting there on your date night already trying to figure out what you’re going to do on your date night. That’s a terrible way to plan a date. It’s just too much when you’re already there. So plan that on Tuesday so that assuming it’s a Friday night, night plan that on Tuesday so that when Friday comes, you know what it’s about. And then you can plan it and you can time it, and you can time it in such a way that you have time to do other things. And if you do go out for one of those big fancy dinners and all those kinds of things, well, that’s what morning sex is for. That’s the next day. So in that case, I really suggest a Friday night date because Saturday mornings are great. Well, if you don’t have little kids, Saturday morning’s a really great time. 

(29:24): 

And if you do have little kids, then I suggest brunch dates where you’re doing your eating at brunch time and you have time to recover before you have alone time. 

Stephanie Everett (29:32): 

I like that. And you kind of hit on one of my questions, which was going to be like, I have some friends, and it’s like they have a standing time each week that they know they’re be with their partner in an intimate way. And I was kind of curious. I know you also talk on your show about keeping it interesting, and so I guess how do you balance this idea of we’re going to plan things and okay, it’s Tuesday at eight o’clock, let’s go get it on, versus the spontaneity of the situation and having fun. I think sometimes we are forgetting to have fun with our partners. 

Ellen Dorian (30:07): 

We definitely are, especially if going back to the earlier part of this discussion, especially if your logistics aren’t handled, then handled, then it’s really hard to have fun. So here’s what I’ll say about that when it comes to planning date nights. So two things. One is spontaneous dates are for kids. And when you’re a grownup and you’ve got other responsibilities, and particularly if you’ve got a business or practice that you’re running, you’ve got to plan your dates. You really do. And I will go back to when you were first dating your partner when you first met and the sex was hot and you couldn’t wait to get there. You planned the dates. We didn’t just go, oh, well, maybe I don’t know what people do these days. I know I never did, didn’t just go and go, oh yeah, everything’s going to work out. No, no. We had plans, we had music, we had candles, we had toys, we had whatever else. We planned the dates. So why would it be any different now if you want to have that kind of sex that you had in the beginning, let’s do the things that you did in the beginning to have the sex that you want to have. 

Stephanie Everett (31:12): 

Yeah, that makes sense. And so if people are listening right now and they’re like, okay, I’m ready. I’m going to take this challenge. And by the way, I know you have a 30 day sex challenge. So when I say you really do challenge us to push, do you need to, I guess you probably answered this. Do you go have a conversation with your partner and say, Hey, I just heard Ellen on Stephanie’s podcast and we’re going to try something new. I want to, let’s figure this out. You got to, I guess, have almost like a business meeting and say, here’s how I want to approach our relationship different. 

Ellen Dorian (31:46): 

Right. Well, and that kind of open discussion is really important to say, instead of always just being disappointed we don’t have enough sex, what if we were to make a plan to improve that? Would you be up for that? Would you be up for giving it a try? I wouldn’t lead with the 30 day sex challenge. Even the 30 day sex challenge doesn’t lead with 30 days of sex. It’s leads with 20 questions. And the 20 questions are 20 questions to help you understand your partner’s desires, which you may have known at one time, or you may never have known or they may have changed. So asking those 20 questions about what do you love? What don’t you love, what’s an ideal date? And I actually have a list of 20 questions that’s part of the challenge, the 30 day sex challenge. It actually takes about eight weeks to implement, and it’s not 30 days of sex. Got it. So just so people know, that would be a lot. I’m not saying it couldn’t be done. And I do know couples who have sex every day, year after year, and that’s amazing to me. Yeah, 

Stephanie Everett (32:51): 

Good for 

Ellen Dorian (32:51): 

Them and wonderful. Yeah, good for them. But it’s really not for everyone, and I don’t think you need to do that in order to have an amazing, mind blowing, world rocking sex life. 

Stephanie Everett (33:03): 

I mean, one of my biggest takeaways from this conversation is just this idea of even of 10 minutes of what could I do to make you feel sexy today? Or what could I make you? I mean, would you talked about that. What could I do to make you feel loved or appreciated? That is something we could and should be doing every day. And I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t make it happen. I don’t have a good excuse. I make excuses. I’m like, oh, I’m busy. I’ve got to go work. I take care of the kid. I got to do all these things. And I don’t always put my husband first. I mean, I could just say that I don’t, but I want to. And so this is maybe I love this. This is encouraging me to rethink my relationship. 

Ellen Dorian (33:46): 

Well, that’s awesome. So just make the world sexy, make more love one day at a time. Right. I’m really happy that that’s sparked some ideas for you. And yeah, I would say let’s talk about one more thing before we go, because it starts here. You cannot take care of your partner if you’re not taking care of yourself. 

(34:08): 

All relationships starts with self-care. If you’re not physically healthy enough, mentally healthy enough, emotionally healthy enough, if you don’t get at least a bare minimum of rest, you’re not going to be able to do all these other things. You’re not going to be able to have amazing sex. You’re not going to be able to plan great dates. You need to be healthy first. So if that’s the place you need to start, then start there. I beg you, start there. Especially mental health. If your mental health is not there, then let’s start there. Get the help that you need, whether it’s with a coach or therapist. It really depends on what the mental health issues are. And I know you’ve said that. You’ve talked about mental health and addictions, and hopefully you’ve talked about loneliness as well, because loneliness and isolation are a huge, huge problem, especially among men in our country. So hopefully if you haven’t talked about loneliness, you will. So let’s start there. Work on yourself, make yourself into a person who could have an amazing sex life. Think about what that would mean as a start. 

Stephanie Everett (35:13): 

Awesome. Ellen, I’m so glad we tackled this topic. It’s new for us, but I said, Hey, why not? We talk about healthy owners and having a healthy business, and this has got to be a part of it. And so I’m excited we’re going to have links to your show. And I would encourage everyone, like you said, it is targeted towards men, but not in a way that it’s not approachable for women. I’ve been listening and I’ve been really enjoying it. I’m just, I’m glad that you’re out there doing this work in the world. 

Ellen Dorian (35:41): 

Well, thank you so much, and thank you so much for having me on. I think it’s massively important that we address these issues, relationship and mental health and physical health with all of the people in our world who are business owners, entrepreneurial people, because it’s wonderful to do that, but we need to be well-rounded, healthy human beings as well. So thank you so much for having me. Thank you for opening up your audience to this topic and for being brave yourself and for forging through with the topic. I loved it. And let’s make sure people can have my contact information and anything that I’ve mentioned today or anything else, if they need help, I’m happy to help. And we’ll give them email, calendar link, website, podcast. 

Stephanie Everett (36:32): 

Awesome. Well, I’ll just remind everyone, as Ellen says, go make more love, 

Ellen Dorian (36:38): 

Make more love in your life, and with your wife. Nice. Thank you. 

Announcer: 

The Lawyerist Podcast is edited by Britany Felix. Are you ready to implement the ideas we discuss here into your practice? Wondering what to do next? Here are your first two steps. First. If you haven’t read The Small Firm Roadmap yet, grab the first chapter for free at Lawyerist.com/book. Looking for help beyond the book? Let’s chat about whether our coaching communities, are right for you. Head to Lawyerist.com/community/lab to schedule a 10-minute call with our team to learn more. The views expressed by the participants are their own and are not endorsed by Legal Talk Network. Nothing said in this podcast is legal advice for you.