Why Most Business Problems Aren't Problems | Tracy Christopherson & Michelle Troseth

Many business owners spend years trying to solve the same problems over and over again.

But what if those challenges aren't actually problems?

In this episode of Small Business Pivots, Michael D. Morrison sits down with leadership experts Tracy Christopherson and Michelle Troseth, co-founders of Missing Logic and authors of Polarity Intelligence: The Missing Logic in Leadership.

Together they explore why many leadership challenges, communication breakdowns, team conflicts, partnership struggles, and work-life balance issues are not problems to solve but polarities to manage.

They share practical insights on building stronger business partnerships, improving communication, creating healthier workplace cultures, navigating conflict, and balancing the growing relationship between artificial intelligence and human intelligence.

If you're a business owner, entrepreneur, manager, or leader looking to build stronger teams and scale your organization without burnout, this episode is packed with actionable leadership wisdom.

In This Episode:

✔ Why most business challenges are not actually problems

✔ The concept of Polarity Intelligence

✔ How successful business partnerships survive difficult seasons

✔ Leadership lessons for entrepreneurs

✔ Building trust through communication

✔ Creating psychological safety within teams

✔ How work-life balance is really a leadership polarity

✔ Why AI and Human Intelligence must work together

✔ Common mistakes leaders make during growth

✔ How to reduce conflict and improve collaboration

About Tracy Christopherson & Michelle Troseth

Tracy Christopherson and Michelle Troseth are co-founders of Missing Logic and creators of the Polarity Intelligence framework. They help leaders navigate complexity, improve communication, reduce burnout, and create healthier organizations through practical leadership development strategies.

Connect With Tracy & Michelle:

Website: MissingLogic.com

Questions and Answers:

Q: What is Polarity Intelligence?

A: Polarity Intelligence is the ability to recognize challenges that require balancing competing priorities rather than solving a single problem.

Q: Why do business partnerships fail?

A: Most partnerships fail because of poor communication, unclear expectations, and unresolved tensions.

Q: How do leaders improve communication?

A: Leaders improve communication by creating psychological safety, encouraging dialogue, and clarifying expectations.

Q: How should businesses use AI?

A: Businesses should balance artificial intelligence with human intelligence, leadership, relationships, and culture.

Transcript

Welcome And Meet The Guests

SPEAKER_01 0:02

If you're a business owner feeling stuck, overwhelmed, and ready to grow, you're in the right place. Welcome to Small Business Pivots, where founders share insights, stories, and pivots that lead to sustainable growth. I'm your host, Michael D. Morrison, a business coach helping business owners get unstuck and grow. All right, welcome to another Small Business Pivots where we bring special guests from around the world. And today, I'm honored because it's the first time I've had more than one guest on the show. There's three of us here, and you better buckle because I think we have a lot of good information for you today. As you know, if you've listened to the show, no one can introduce themselves like the business owner. So I'm going to let you all go first, introduce yourself, and just a tidbitstory about you so people can kind of get caught up where you are today. I'll let you all choose who goes first.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Yeah, I'm going to kick us off, but um before we introduce ourselves individually, we thought it'd be really good for people to kind of know who they're listening to. So we've got quite a history together. And uh so we actually met 40 years ago in hospital orientation in a large auditorium where they said, stand up and shake the hand of the person behind you. And that was me, and we have been shaking hands ever since.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Oh wow. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_03 1:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Isn't it incredible? The other thing they know, the other thing they know about us is we are not only co-business owners, we are best friends. Oh we've been best friends for still. I'm sure we'll get into that.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Yes, we will. Yes, we will. I've been burned by a partnership, so we will.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Yeah, so we're best friends and our husbands are best friends, and we refer to ourselves as the mighty foresome. And the other thing to know about Tracy and I is that we are total opposites. We're what we call a walking polarity. We are now known in the industry as the polarity power pair. And we'll get into more of that later when we talk to you about what we do.

unknown 2:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

Yeah. But we've been in business for nearly a decade, and we've pivoted multiple times. So we feel really comfortable being here with you, Michael.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Fantastic. We'd like to say the boxes.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

Yeah, we kind of hold on to that identity of being the scientist, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Always exploring. We've got all the boxes, and we're checking new ones. There's three of us now.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

I know.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

All right. So anything else you want to share about uh get us caught up to date?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Well, that's that's who we are together. We thought it'd be great for your listeners to know. We come as a package. We are the dynamic duo polarity power pair, but we're gonna share a little bit about us individually now. So I'm Michelle, and my background is I'm a nurse. And so I've gone from a nurse to a female entrepreneur and co-business owner with Tracy. I live in West Michigan. So my home is Hudsonville, which is just outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan. And I'm also a mom. I have three adult sons, and I have a two-year-old grandson and a granddaughter that's going to be born in two weeks. I cannot wait. I'm ready for another girl in my family. And I've been in leadership roles really all my life when I think back. I am the oldest of five children. So I kind of took that role on early, being my mom's helper and got into nursing quite serendipitously. And I have had an amazing career working with healthcare in leadership roles. And it actually ended up at a large global corporation as a C-suite executive and led transformational change across the industry in healthcare for many, many years. So I feel very blessed to have the career I had. And in our business, I really tend to have the role of the dreamer, the visionary, and the connector. I love connecting with people. It's one of the things I love about having a podcast as well. And I'm really the yin to Tracy's Yang.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Yeah. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:12

And I I'm a General Motors baby. So I come from Flint, Michigan originally. I'm the only person in my family who did not work for General Motors. I became a respiratory therapist after a very close friend of mine was in a terrible car accident and was um in ICU for many, many months. And that's where I got exposed to it. And and then I went from so I went from respiratory therapist to entrepreneur. I live in northern Michigan, not all the way up in the UP, but close. I'm in Boine City, Michigan. And I spend my summers there. I don't like winter, so I spend my winters in California where it's sunny and warm.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Absolutely. Me too.

SPEAKER_03 4:55

Yeah, yeah, great. And I was a sunny and warm. Yeah, I was a single mother for about 12 years. My son and I both have PhDs. And then I became a stepmother to two other wonderful children and had a blended family. I have so I have three children total and five grandchildren. And I have been in leadership roles as well for many, many years, an executive in the same company that Michelle worked in. But I worked outright in organizations with leaders, helping them to develop collaborative teams and resilient teams and to develop themselves and their leadership as well. And then I spent 15 years in school getting multiple degrees culminating in my PhD.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 5:43

And so that's just a testimony to my fortitude. Let me tell you.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 5:48

And I'm just, you know, I'm kind of like a dog with a bone. I like when I want to go after something, I don't want to go until I get what I want. I'm kind of the integrator operator in our business. And so I'm the Yang to Michelle's Yin.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Okay. All right. I love this. I love

Leadership Starts With Vision

SPEAKER_01 6:04

this. Well, you both came from structure, right? So the corporate world is structure. Unfortunately, many small business owners did not, right? They've usually worked the blue-collar type or maybe a smaller organization. And so one of the top challenges that they have is leadership because they're really good at what they do, like their skill set. They're they're the best electrician, HVAC, whatever it is they do, they're really good at that, but they've never, they've never been mentored by a good leader. So you stepping away from corporate and having to be the leader and carry that on in your own entrepreneurial journeys. What would you say is kind of maybe some of the first steps that an entrepreneur or business owner should learn first?

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Well, I think that really you have to have a vision, you have to know where you're going. That's really important. And then you have to really realize that you don't have to go it alone and that it's really important to have a team to help support you. That's really hard for people to realize at first. And they think that that they tend to put off having a team sometimes too long, then they become the bottleneck in their business. And Tracy and I, we've seen so many leaders, we call it uh they're being the all-star player in their business, where they're just still running all the plays or doing all the work, and they can't, they can't they have don't haven't casted a vision big enough so that they can back away and say, How are we gonna, how am I gonna make this happen? And who needs to support me to do it?

SPEAKER_02 7:35

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 7:36

Yeah, and I think it's an I it's an identity. So I think a lot of times people think, well, to be a leader, I gotta do things, you know, there's certain things I gotta do, but it really starts with seeing yourself as a leader. You have to really embody the characteristics and and I think get some clarity on what does that look like for you? Because we all have different strengths and talents, and you want to really lean into your strengths and talents, but recognize you don't have all the strengths and talents that you need in your business, and then to look to build your team around the strengths that you don't have, and then to let go and lean into that. So those are like, you know, know that this is about an identity. Who do I want to be? How do I want to show up? It starts there and kind of embodying those characteristics, and and who's the leader of the company that I ultimately want to have? Not the company I have today, but the company I want five, 10 years down the road. Because that's the leader you've got to be today to get there. And I say that because you won't outperform your identity. So you're not gonna build a team or let go of control or do some of the things you need to do as a leader to build that business unless you embody the identity first.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

So coming from the corporate world or the bigger organization, there's structure, but there's also a deeper bench, right? So everything was kind of set out before you to follow. Then you move into entrepreneurship, which we have no rules, we have no boundaries. Where do we start? What was that like, and where did you start to kind of bring that structure and leadership education experience into the smaller business where where you're having to do everything yourself, SOPs and everything.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

We we just we were just talking about that this week.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Oh you have a bug in your office.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

It may be it's amazing, and I think what's important that we can share is you have different experiences depending on what your background was in your corporate experience, right? So for me, I was I was like a global thought leader. I always had I I had an executive assistant for probably 10 years all to myself. And I so I always had someone to help me, and I had I had teams to delegate things to. So when I joined the business with Tracy, it didn't take long before it was like, oh, you mean I gotta do that? I gotta write the blog. I I have to learn how to use Excel myself.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

And it's really, it takes you a while to shake that part of yourself. That you that you just always had someone else or the structures in your place to your point, Michael, of someone else to do it and realize I have to learn a whole new skill set and put on a different hat now and and see myself as a female entrepreneur down the road, like what Tracy said. But then I also have to embrace the skills to get us there. And sometimes you have to do things you don't like to do when you're first starting your business, but it's got to get done.

SPEAKER_03 10:53

Yeah. So I think it's a lot of learning at first, you know. That I'm a structure person, I love structure, I love processes, I love that stuff. So that wasn't a transition into that wasn't hard for me. I did lean into coaches, to you know, learning different programs. And I'll tell you, I don't know about anybody else, but we didn't have a clue what we were doing when we got started. I didn't know what I was stepping into. I thought we're gonna put together this online course, we're gonna sell it, it's gonna be great, and that's it. Like I had no idea about all the messaging I had to learn and all of those kinds of things. So I think you got to tap into people who have experience, you gotta be willing to learn the things that you never thought you'd do, that you don't really like to do, but you gotta it helps to have guides on your journey, right? Because this is really a hero's journey, and there's a lot of potholes along the way, but I think it is about recognizing you know what you need to learn and how that applies to where you're going, and then tap into tools. I think the biggest thing that helped us was having tools that would support us, and now we've got AI, so a lot of people can really lean into getting suggestions, recommendations, getting research for your business, like really learning what's happening in your market. So I think there's a a lot of those kinds of things. Like just I leaned into tools that other people provided. I just put my foot, I just put my toe in it and kept going, right? So I think you gotta be you got to have perseverance too, and not be afraid to fail. Everything that's where the experimenter comes in, the scientist, everything's an experiment when you're getting started. So just know that and hold that and and keep yourself moving forward. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Yeah, it's almost like the you mentioned grandbabies coming, and it's I used to kid with my friends that didn't have kids before I did, and I would always tell them, like, you see all those magazines at the grocery store with this cute little baby and smiling mom, and they have the answer for no, no one has

The Pivots That Saved Them

SPEAKER_01 12:59

the answer. Every child is different, every business is different, right? So, what were some of the things that when you stepped away and started the entrepreneur, what were some of the pivots you made based on we don't quite need this yet? Yes, down the road we will, but not right now. So, what were some of those learning experiences that you caught yourself in? Because I see business owners wasting time, right? They're trying to do something that they don't need to be doing for like five years from now. But coming from a structured, you're like, we need this and we need this, and we need this, and no, we don't need that yet. So, what were some of those pivots?

SPEAKER_03 13:32

So I'll speak to one of them, and that is we hired a very expensive integrator too soon in our business.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Can you I know what that is? Can you right?

SPEAKER_03 13:43

So, an integrator is somebody who really is holding the operations of the business, and and it was a part where it was getting heavy for me to hold it all, and I really needed help. And so I went out. We you know, we went out and hired somebody to take that on as a full-time job, and and one not really knowing how to set them up to be successful, and and spending a lot of our cash flow, our finance and resources on this person. And it was way too early for somebody at that level when we were just getting started. But we kept hearing, right? Integrator, you need to have an integrator. And I was tired of being the integrator, to be honest with you. I was like ready to give up some of the stuff, but it was like a big leap for us, and we should, we really should have never done that. That was a big lesson for us.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Yeah. Great person, great where we were going. And it's kind of like how you go back to what you used to have. So we kind of went back to the type of person we used to work with in corporate, but it we didn't recognize it's really not the type of person we need to go forward. So that was a big lesson.

SPEAKER_03 14:53

Yeah. And we were riding two horses at the same time. I think that's the other mistake that we made. So we when we started our business, because we came from consulting, we thought, well, we'll do consulting and we'll build a program and do a coaching business. And it was really difficult to manage and be successful in both at the same time. And so, you know, we were really trying to ride two horses, which added a level of complexity to our business that we, as new entrepreneurs, we really weren't prepared to deal with. And then we got ourselves into a situation where we were building a life that wasn't the life that we really wanted, right? So um, I that was another thing, just doing too many things at one time instead of one, you know, build one bridge to the one island at a time, instead of trying to build three bridges to three different islands. You think, oh, I'll do this, and you get these great ideas. Oh, well, we can we can build that, we'll put that out there. And then pretty soon you're not doing any of them well, right? Because right, you you're splitting yourself in too many different directions. So I think that's a couple of yeah, that those are two good ones.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

That's a great one. In fact, I'm gonna call one of the business owners right now that I work with. Can you tell him that? Sure, I've been trying to knock that in his head for weeks.

SPEAKER_03 16:14

Oh, yeah. That's I mean, you know, well, you get if you're an entrepreneur, you tend to have a lot of ideas, right? And and you get stimulated by seeing what other people are doing. And you think, oh, we could add that to our business, or we should add that service, or we could do this, and then pretty soon you just stretch too thin, and none of it's working well, and you're burned out and yeah, not good.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Well, leadership, that's what you all focus on. So tell us a little bit about that and how you help people, what that looks like.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Yeah,

Polarity Intelligence Explained Simply

SPEAKER_00 16:45

so one of the things that Tracy and I learned as leaders dealing with complex change is that we would see the same problems over and over and over again. And people see this in business all the time too. The same thing keeps coming up over and over and over again. And we learned in our before we left our corporate careers that often things aren't problems to solve, they're actually polarities you need to be aware of and to leverage. And we're taught to look at everything through a problem lens. If it's a problem, I fix it. And polarities are simply interdependent pairs of values or points of view that seem contradictory or opposite, but they actually need each other over time. And so, as a business leader, you have to be aware of them and you have to take action on both poles as an example. So, you know, when it comes to business, a very common one that we all have to deal with is paying attention to the financial aspect of the business or the margin and the business, the reason the business exists. And if we don't aren't if we're not constantly aware of how well that is balanced and leveraged, then we'll ultimately fail. So it's it's there's so many and in both polarities in business. So we help leaders identify them and how to actually leverage them in their business, and wrote a book called Polarity Intelligent, the missing logic in leadership, because a lot of leaders aren't even aware of them.

SPEAKER_03 18:21

Yeah, yeah. It's like income and impact, right? You you want you build your business because you want to have an impact, but you also need to be developing, bringing in the income to drive the business. So that's that's kind of the example, I think. And I think the other thing is it's not just being able to differentiate when you have a problem that has a single solution, and when you have a polarity that requires you to kind of hold both at the same time, it's also about how you engage with your team and engage with others inside your business. So you also want to be that can be create tension when people have different points of view. Example, Michelle and I being a walking polarity, we are complete opposites. When it comes to some of the polls, we have opposite preferences. I prefer productivity, she's all about relationships. So I drive her productivity. She's all let's connect, right? Let's let's let's engage everybody, which is great. That's not my strength and that's not my preference, but we need both in our business. And when we're working with our team, we can't just push them and drive them to be productive. We need to engage them and have good relationships with them, right? So you need to be able to sit in the tension of those opposing points of view and recognize wait, we neither one is more right than the other. We need both, and we need to have, in order to do that, we need a healthy relationship with each other to be able to talk through our differences and to recognize there are benefits to both and come to that place where we can balance both and be in dialogue with each other, have really deep, meaningful conversations with each other when we are in a situation where I prefer something and she prefers something else, or a team member prefers to do it one way, and we prefer that we give attention to the other aspect of it. So it's about sitting in those tensions with each other, and sometimes people see that as conflict, and they think it's about the person, but it's not about the person, it's just about a different perspective. And when they're tied together, connected, you need both. So you got to learn to be able to do that. And we teach leaders how to do that.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

So put you on the spot here.

unknown 20:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Can you share an example of how you had to work through something like an actual situation through the business where you didn't quite see eye to eye and how that came together to the benefit of the organization? Because I have business owners all the time may have a different perspective than their employees. And so they're constantly battling, there's a disconnect there, and they don't know how to work through it. So you don't have to give personal details. I just want to I want them to hear like how we worked through it and came out good on the other end 40 years later.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Yeah, yeah. Well, I I think a really great example of that is the polarity of candor and diplomacy. So when it comes to that dialogue and communication, it's so important that you're really up front with each other, that you bring your truth. You know, this is this is my experience, or and and not not keep it hidden. Like if some, if there's even if it's small, like bring it with candor, but you also have to bring it in a way that's very diplomatic so that it can be heard. And that's a skill set. It's a polarity, but it's also a dialogue skill set. And Tracy and I we're opposite on in every polarity, except where we both do prefer the candor poll. And I mean the diplomacy poll. And so we've had to learn that we Have to exercise our candor pull more. And and and that's kind of hard because we really love each other and we're best friends. But when you're in a business, you also have to be able to say, this isn't working for me, and this is why. And just have those conversations on an ongoing basis.

SPEAKER_03 22:20

Yeah. And I would say, like, as an example with an employee. So we had we had somebody that was working with us. And you know, the the quality of the work was starting to change. And it wasn't as consistent or reliable as it had been. And so an example of this, like in typically you want to be a little bit diplomatic when you're starting out with a conversation. You don't want to make assumptions about what's happening or why it's happening, or, you know, so, but you also have to balance that with just saying, hey, this is not meeting the expectation, right? So, you know, it we kind of started out with this person, you know, with we're noticing a change. Is there something going on? Because people, life life for people, and you and you know, you you get tension or stress in another area of your life and it impacts the outcomes. So we started with that, and then it just wasn't improving. And so then we had to get even more candid to say, okay, here are the expectations. This is what we're receiving. We need to understand why you're not meeting the expectations and will you be able to meet those expectations? Because this is important for not just us, but for the team. You're a part of a team where what the work you're doing is handed off to somebody else. And if it's not the same quality, it takes us a lot longer. We have to circle back. Having those kind of candid conversations with that individual was critical. And it really, really helped them to see that that they were a part of the team and that their what they were producing was impacting everybody else and not just the outcome of the company. So we did, we were able to resolve the challenges and the performance improved. But it was a great way of kind of just being tender, balancing, being, you know, not being too command and control as an example, right? But to be more partnering and leveraging that candor diplomacy helped us to partner with that person to get them back on track with where they needed to go. So that's an example with a team member, if that's helpful.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Yeah, that's very helpful. And when people get called out, right? That's what we're kind of doing. We take it personal. And so sometimes, a lot of times, in small businesses, we don't have the same courtesies that we do have in bigger companies, right? You can get fired, there's a deeper bench, it's okay that you're gone, someone else will fill that role. In smaller companies, I see this all the time where you point my out my flaws, I'm pointing out your flaws, voices start escalating. Are there any like safeguards in there, or is it just like we know how to treat each other? I mean, that's easier said than done. Small businesses, it seems like voices start escalating and pointing of fingers. You're listening to Small Business Pivots with Michael D. Morrison. If you're ready to get your business unstuck and grow, let's chat. Schedule your free session at Michael DMorrison.com. Now back to the show.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Well,

Guardrails For Healthy Communication

SPEAKER_00 25:25

well, one of the one of the tools that Tracy and I have that we use in our business, and we've helped coach other business owners and leaders with it, is a partnership agreement tool. And it's a very simple tool, again, back to the tools that Tracy mentioned, is just really laying out what your expectations are, what you need from the other person, and really how to best communicate. And it's like six simple questions with two columns, and you each fill it out individually, but you meet and you really have a great conversation about it. And it's something we go back to quite a bit. And what we've discovered to your point, Michael, is people don't lay that foundation down. So it's really easy to escalate the tension in the conversation because they haven't really truly understood how each of them can contribute to the shared purpose of the company and what they each bring to it and what they need from each other. So that's something we've had in place in our business. And we've it's been very helpful for other business owners as well.

SPEAKER_03 26:31

Yeah. And it's called a partnership agreement, but it's not about our partnership, it's about a partnering relationship. So it can be you and your employee or you and a VA, anybody you work with, really to bring that clarity and to your point, it's the guardrails. So here's what you said I could expect from you. This is what I'm getting. Help me know what's getting in the way. So it's an expectation. This is a part of leadership in small business. You still have to create a culture in your organization that's a part of leading, is to say, here's how we treat each other. Here are here's how we're going to communicate with each other, here's how we're going to come to agreement. And when something isn't working, then we are free to come to each other to say, This is what you said I could expect from you, but this is what I'm getting. And I need to understand why it's not happening the way we said it would happen. So it's a very respectful conversation. And those are the guardrails. And people both on both ends feel safe. The employee feels safe to say, hey, this is what you said, and that's not what's happening. And they feel safe to come and say that, right? It creates that psychological safety. It creates a space where people can don't have to escalate because they know it's not about blame, it's about helping you operate at your fullest capacity so we can all operate at our fullest capacity and potential. And it's it's how you approach that. And those are some of the other things that we really help, you know, small business owners do is really kind of create that culture, lean into your team. The more respectful you are with them, the more you set these guardrails, the easier it is for people to communicate and to feel like they are contributing to the greater purpose of the company. Um, it's not about being wrong or being blamed, it's about being trustworthy, being consistent, you know, working to your full potential, and communicating in ways that are respectful with each other.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

So guardrails are obviously important, right? Guiding principles, mission, vision, culture, all those things. So for those listeners that don't have them, I suggest you do that first. But for those that do have them, let's say that there's tension starting to escalate. Is it better to say, like point at that vision or that culture statement on the wall and say, or how do you like bring it back down to a level when you do have those guardrails? Because I see businesses that do have them, but there's just I mean, people get personal.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Yeah. Well, I think that's where the principles of healthy relationships and meaningful dialogue come in. Like you have to create a space to have a conversation. And sometimes people struggle with taking the time to do that. But that's kind of what that's really what gives you the shared understanding and it helps you as the business owner to really know what is needed in that relationship or situation. So it's it's having con I would Tracy and I like to use the analogy, it's really like having a cup of coffee with your best friend. You don't have to look at it and have some how do I do this? Just have a conversation, really listen, create that safe space. And you can learn from each other so much. Dialogue has it has an assumption tied to it that everyone in your company has a piece of knowledge that you don't have, they have wisdom, they've walked in places you haven't. And if you create that space, it's amazing how they step up or what how it changes your perspective because you never knew that about them. So it's the culture and those and understanding that people do have differences, they have preferences, but then really taking the time to honor those relationships and create meaningful dialogue is really important.

SPEAKER_03 30:20

Yeah. And and I think it's dependent on what it's around. Yeah. So you mentioned tension a couple of times, and oftentimes when you're experiencing tension, it can be connected to a polarity. So you just may have two people with opposing or contradictory points of view. And and when you have, when you feel tension, it's really important to dive into inquiry. So help me. I I feel like there's a lot of tension around this. Help me understand what your perspective is on this and to really listen to that. Um, because most of the time tension rises because we're we have fear, and we are afraid that we are going to have to give up what we value in order to accept what somebody else values. But when you learn about polarities, you learn about polarities are not either or. Polarities are always about both and. You know, let's fight this out, right?

SPEAKER_02 31:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:40

But when you have perspectives, it's really uncovering are these interdependent? Is this really a polarity? And we just have different points of view, and we can actually get the best of both as we go forward. So that's another skill that is enhanced when you have the ability to be in relationship and have dialogue because then you're not fighting against each other, you're really trying to understand each other. And a lot of times somebody's had an experience, a negative experience, and they don't want to go there. I don't want to implement that process. I've, you know, they're thinking, I've done that before, that didn't work, it was really awful. I don't want to go there, so they're afraid that that's gonna happen again. And you might not, you might be clueless to that. Like, I don't know anything about that, right? So you wouldn't have that fear. But fear and resistance are wisdom in disguise. It really opens you when you can say, Oh, there's resistance. What do we need to learn? Yeah, why are you resistant? Is there something you know I don't know? When you approach it that way, you can get past that tension, and people can say, Oh, okay, like I don't have to give this up, let's talk about this, right? They can it releases that fear a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Yeah. You

How Partnerships Survive Hard Seasons

SPEAKER_01 32:50

mentioned you've been business partners. And for those that don't know the statistics, 50% of marriages end in divorce. We've all heard that, but almost 80% of business partnerships end in divorce. So that if that tells you anything, it's more than marriages and relationships. What are some keys to having a strong, healthy relationship? I know leadership and your the things you've been talking about, but are there any other insights that you found that keeps you together?

SPEAKER_00 33:21

Yeah, well, I think first of all, we have always said our friendship matters more than the business. And so in that way, it it is we we've said it's it's like a marriage. It's like we're both married twice.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you are pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

And it's it's but it's a commitment to the respect we have for each other and knowing each other so long, and that we can get through anything, just like in a healthy marriage. And so I think that has been a really key thing. And then just really knowing each other and those differences again, and then it's it's not to drive us apart, it's actually there to help make us better, but we have to have the wisdom to recognize that and to know how to support each other because of the opposite perspectives or strengths, and also when we we can shine because of our strengths and preferences. So that's been one key thing, I think.

SPEAKER_03 34:19

Yeah, I think we just turned our opposing perspectives and preferences into our greatest strength. And it hasn't always been this way. It's been a long and hard journey. We've had to really go through some rough times with each other and some really tense times with each other. And but it's made us better people. We're learning. You have to understand, I think, when you're in a partnership, and especially in a small business and when you're getting started, you're each on your own journey. And every level requires you to step up to a new level individually and collectively. And I think if we would not have had the background around healthy relationships and dialogue and the ability to sit in tensions, it probably would be would have been much harder for us. I think that's been our strength. But I think it's also just the commitment that we have to each other and that we know that no matter what we're doing, we're never intentionally trying to irritate or hurt the other person. We're always doing our best. And sometimes that lands well, sometimes it doesn't. But you gotta be able to, you know, hear the truth, be open to hearing about what you're doing that is not working, and be willing to change and grow, just like in a marriage. You got, you know, we all evolve, we don't stay the same. Michelle and I are nowhere near the people we were when we started this business as we are today. And I know five years from now we won't look anything like we do today either. So we just trust that and we we help each other grow and learn, and we're honest, and it's not been an easy journey. It's not like, oh, we've been holding hands and skipping and singing kubaya for nine years. I could tell you that.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Well, thank you for being honest because I was starting to go, wow.

SPEAKER_03 36:11

No, but we have these tools and we have these, we've developed these skills. And without them, I have no doubt we probably would have hung that hung it up a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

The other thing, too, and this is important for marriages. My husband also owns a business, and we were talking about this last night. Is we also have built in what we call BFF time. So that we are very intentional. If we're gonna just take a day off and be Tracy and Michelle as friends and not talk about the business, that's really important too. And we also have built into our week, we've got a Monday check-in, a Friday checkout. And our our Monday check-in is primarily more about just tell me what you did with your family this weekend, what really happened, what things are you thinking about? And then a Friday, we'll touch if there's anything really important about the business, we'll do it at those points. But it's still more about how can we support each other as human beings and as friends? Because you have to be intentional. It you know, just you can't be all business all the time at the same time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

So you talk about structure, and would you say that you also have defined roles in the organization, or do you work together and share those roles?

SPEAKER_03 37:27

I think it's both, and right, like Michelle has certain things that she's responsible for in the organization that she takes the lead on. We collaborate around everything, pretty much, right? We get each other's feedback, but like she runs all the podcasts and our newsletter and all those kinds of things. I'm more the social media, the content development for our business, the programs that we're putting together. So we we each do that. But what's critical is we are we have to be on the same page, right? And and when that's not happening, we recognize it right away. So we have to course correct, you know. We have some, there's some warning signs that we know. Oh, okay, we're not on the same page around this. We got to get on it. And sometimes too, I think, you know, I think one of the other things that we've learned is you have to be able to bring, you know, you have to be able to say the hard, the things that are hard and know that it's okay to say it, that it's really about maintaining the foundation of your relationship, that it's not about blaming, it's not about any of that, but it's just about this hurt me, or this didn't feel good, or how can, you know, how can we get to a different place with this because uh it's not just it feels heavy, you know. You just can't be able to say it and just if you have that freedom, then you can work through it. If you're holding it inside, then it just builds up, builds up, builds up to you just blow, right? And and you reach that threshold, and then it's I'm out of here. This is it, right? And you haven't even really had the conversation that might have taken care of it, right? So that's a part of it.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

So, so communicate. Oh when it boils down to it, it's communicate.

SPEAKER_03 39:07

Yeah, yeah. And we have a every month we have a check-in time where we, you know, it's just really let's check in on how we're doing with our partnership. Nothing to do about the business, but just how's a relationship? Anything I need to do different, what do we need to think about? How are we in alignment with the agreement that we have about how we're gonna work together? Anything need to shift, and we do that every month, once a month, so that we don't have anything that's like building up, right? And and we do it real time too when we need to. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

So I know from time to time when I'm on a podcast, I'm like, oh, I wish we could talk about this. Is there anything that you'd really like to kind of deep dive into before we exit today that we may not have covered? I didn't stump you, did I?

SPEAKER_03 39:54

I just was thinking, I think we've talked about a lot of it. I think

Work Life Balance And AI Tension

SPEAKER_03 39:58

the biggest thing is for people just to recognize that most of the challenges they face are not problems. I think that's the biggest issue for businesses, small businesses, founders, leaders, entrepreneurs. We are so ingrained in there's a solution for every problem, and every challenge is a problem that can be solved. But but I would say probably 80% of what you're facing is not a problem. It's connected to something else in your business. And if you are not giving attention to both, you are going to experience the consequences of that. And where the problem comes back over and over is because you're diagnosing it as a problem, but it's not. It's really one of these polarities where you're overfocus, you're overfocusing your attention on one area of your business and you're neglecting another. And that can, you know, it's like planning and executing is a great example. Michelle and I went through this, and we were so busy executing when we first got going that we weren't doing the planning that we needed to do to make the execution effective, as effective as it could be. So, you know, again, you need to have you need to be giving attention to both. And if you overfocus on one and you neglect the other, you're gonna you're gonna deal with it, right? So I think that's just so critical. And so many people are unaware of this, you know, these polarities and that they exist and that they can manage them. It's like work-life balance. Think about entrepreneurs and having any kind of life, right? Yeah, you're so married to your business that your other part of your life suffers. You sacrifice it thinking, I've got to give all my attention, everything relies on me. I gotta do this. And you think, well, work-life balance isn't possible anyway. Nobody's ever achieved that, right? How could that be possible? I'll just forget that that's even an option, and I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. Or, you know, something happens, and then you swing way back over and you give all your attention to your personal life, and then your business starts to tank, then you swing back over here, right? That's the pattern because we're choosing between them when we need to choose both. So that would be probably the last thing I would say is just really getting an understanding of that is critical to reducing your stress, yeah. And spending a lot of time trying to solve things that aren't ever going to be solvable.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

And I would just add, I would build on that actually. I would say for the time we're at now with being a business owner, and Tracy brought up early in the interview that you know, people have AI today. We didn't have AI when we started our business. And the big evolution that's happening right now is artificial intelligence and human intelligence. It is a polarity. So I think as a business owner, as you're bringing these tools and we've listened to several of your podcasts, Michael. We know people are talking about it. Is the things Tracy and I are talking about are even more important. The culture, the relationships, the communication. And if you go all in an AI and you're not paying attention to your own humanness, the humanness of your team, in the end, you will fail. So I think that's the other takeaway. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

Yeah. No, I I love that. I love that there's not a solution for every problem because it's not a problem every time. So that's something that I've never thought about, but that's so true. So true.

SPEAKER_03 43:15

Yeah. If you just think about it, you'll probably think about five or ten problems that you've dealt with over the years over and over and over and over.

SPEAKER_01 43:24

Yeah. Because they're not instead of trying to do the balance, you integrate the two: the social, the family, the business, uh, versus trying to cut one off and lose interest. You know, you get pulled in so many different directions.

SPEAKER_03 43:39

Yeah, there's a healthy tension between them that you actually want to maintain. You know, they're never just it's not like you can do a mashup of it all. You got to maintain that healthy tension because that's what keeps you moving towards your greater purpose, right? You need that tension to keep you moving. If you think if you get lax with it, that's when things fall off. So you you want some tension, that's always good because it keeps you moving, taking action. And that's just important to know that tension is also a good thing, it's not always bad.

SPEAKER_01 44:07

Yeah. Well, how can people find out more about you? Are there social channels you like that better than others where they can learn more daily or often?

SPEAKER_00 44:18

Absolutely. So IG, Facebook, and TikTok we're known as at the Polarity Power Payer. So you can find us Polarity Power Pair. On LinkedIn, we have our company, Missing Logic. And then we also are on there as individuals as well, Dr. Tracy Christofferson and Michelle Trosett. So you can find us there. We also have a book website called Polarity Intelligence.com. And on that, we actually have downloadable tools, some of them that we talked about today. So if the listener wants to go check that out, that'd be great. And then we have missinglogic.com as well. But we also have a podcast. Gotta do a plug for the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

Absolutely. I'm looking at it right now.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

Burnout proof leadership. So that's a great place. And every Friday, Tracy and I do a 10-minute polarity spotlight, and we shine a light on the common polarities business owners deal with all the time.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_03 45:12

More things that are showing up in the world. Yeah. Like people might not recognize it's a polarity. They might think that's a big problem.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

Yeah. So I'm sure you probably talk about AI and the human a lot, I would think, because that's getting really it's getting serious, I think.

SPEAKER_03 45:29

Yeah. There's a lot. Well, and look at the fear.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:33

Right? There's a lot of people that are really afraid of AI because they're afraid of losing what they value around human connection. And and you know that that so it's yeah, it's just showing up everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 45:47

Yeah, it is. Well, you all have been a blessing today. It's been a joy to visit with you all. I appreciate your time and insights, and I wish you continued success.

SPEAKER_03 45:57

Oh, thank you. Thank you so much, Michael. Yeah, it's been great.

SPEAKER_01 46:03

Thanks for listening to Small Business Pivots. If you're ready to get unstuck and grow, schedule your free coaching session at MichaeldMorrison.com. On social media, you can find and connect with me using the handle Michael D.Morrison OKC. And if today's episode helped you, subscribe and share it with other business owners. Until next week, keep pivoting.