Molly Claire: Hey coaches, in this episode I'm bringing you Erin and Steve. They are married. They are business partners. They are both master coaches, and this episode is phenomenal with great insights for any of you who have ever considered a partnership business, whether with a family member, a spouse, or anyone at all. This is a great episode to get some insights from. We talk about the real challenges behind the scenes, the benefits, the questions to ask and the things to consider to know if this is the right move for you. And hey, even if you've never considered it and it's the furthest thing from your mind, you're going to get so much from this episode. It was a fantastic conversation and I'm so excited to share it with you.

 

By the way, we are closing enrollment for advanced certification for motherhood and family life coaching, so if you've missed out on that, go ahead and make sure to email my team: [email protected], or you can of course go to mollyclaire.com and check out the advanced certification page.

 

Applications are closing this week, and I will be reviewing personally all of those applications and bringing together this amazing group of coaches focused on supporting women and families and motherhood and all the things.

 

All right, here we go. Let's talk with Erin and Steve.

 

All right, coaches, I have two master coaches here for you. I'm so excited to share Erin and Steve with you. Say hello, you guys .

 

Erin Aquin: Hello everybody.

 

Steve Haase: Nice to be here.

 

Molly Claire: This is exciting. So I always like to first share with my audience from you, you know, who you are, what you do, why you love it. And so we're just gonna, going to dive right into that. And I'm excited for you to share with my audience a little bit about your transformation because of course my, you know, audience full of coaches at different places on their journey and there's always more to learn, isn't there?

 

Erin Aquin: Always.

 

Molly Claire: Yes. So I'm excited for you to share your experience. So tell us a little bit about who you guys are together, we'll separate you out in a minute, but who are you together and what do you do?

 

Steve Haase: So company is called Super Abound and together we're married to each other. And we also have our own separate coaching practices and we lead group programs together. We have the Super Bound Business Group program, and we also have something for, managers in corporations called the new Manager Launchpad.

 

Molly Claire: Awesome. Amazing. And we'll hear, we'll hear more about that of, and of course people can find you, with all the info we give.

 

But I know you said you each have your own businesses, and I know you're also kind of coming together more and more. And my guess is that also within the business, you each have very separate gifts, different gifts, and abilities that you bring together. I, Erin is nodding emphatically Yes. Yes. Yeah.

 

Erin Aquin: Yeah. Our separate businesses, this kind of, it's been a about a year and a half long process of bringing our two businesses together under one umbrella of Super Abound. But when, when we started, I became a coach a few years before Steve and I had a relationship coaching business that was just me all alone with all of my doubts and uncertainty and just kind of figuring it out from the ground up.

 

And I remember when Steve kind of went through his own coaching journey and then when it was time for him to join my business, I remember thinking, "This is gonna be so easy for you because I've already done all the hard work to set this thing up. I've already gone through all the things and now you're married to another coach who can help you go through those, like very normal dips and, insecurities."

 

Steve Haase: It was not easy guys.

 

Molly Claire: We always think that. We're like, "Oh, this is going to be so easy", and then you realize it's just a new set of challenges, that's all.

 

It's right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Never really easy. You're never really there. Yeah. And, and I wanna just pause and highlight for a minute. You know, you saying where you started with relationships and you interviewed me back in the day, right. I was working with people more in relationships, and I think for any coach that's been in this industry for any amount of time, we know and see that everyone's business just like, shifts and adjusts and changes, and it's very normal. And so I think it only becomes a problem when we're constantly switching and looking every direction, and we're not really staying the course, but it's so normal as you dive in and move forward, that that things will adjust and change.

 

And so it's been really fun to watch, watch you, and this whole journey. So this is great. So Steve, it wasn't easy. Tell us why she had just done all the work for you.

 

Erin Aquin: I did all the work.

 

Steve Haase: RIght? She did all the work and I was supposed to be able to just ride on her coattails, but it didn't happen that way. There were some things that, like she said, were made easier by us partnering together. The corporate entity already existed. There was a bank account for the money to go into. And I even got a referral from one of your clients. So it's like, when you are new, your business is going to come from the people you know. The better you know them

 

Molly Claire: Yeah, it's so true.

 

Steve Haase: Right? The better you know them, the better the chance of getting those referrals. And so the fact that Erin was a coach working with coaching clients, it it, it made it that much easier.

 

Molly Claire: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And then

 

Steve Haase: But yeah. Right. But honestly, just land, like my first really just one came through that. Right. It was not like an endless pipeline of cash in my door, you know? It was not that at all. So, The, the process was me finding my own feet as a coach, creating my own brand, so to speak. And then literally, because at a certain point Erin looked at me and said, "You've just spent the last decade in the corporate world. Why aren't you working with people from there? Why are you in my relationship coaching business?" I'm like,

 

Molly Claire: Please get outta my relationship business, husband. That's great. Yeah.

 

Steve Haase: So in response to that, I was like, "Okay. You're right. I, I'd love to kind of go back to the people that I was working with to get the things done and work with them as a coach." And so then I focused on leadership coaching. I did a certification with Chris Plachy on that in particular. And then I created my own actual brand, Hyper Growth Coach. I was like, "You know what? These tech companies that I was at, these kinda hyper-growth organizations, I wanna focus on those. Those are the people I wanna work with." So I created my own brand and was building that over the next year and a half.

 

Molly Claire: Awesome. Okay. I wanna dive into this a little bit more because I am curious if any of this, I didn't even ask you guys for permission ahead of time to ask this, we're just gonna do it anyway. Cause I know you guys are pretty much an open book, but has there been challenges personally, relationship wise with this, you know, you having your business, Erin, and then him sort of being in that business and doing his own. Because it sounds like very like easy and pretty from the outside. Have there been challenges? And I'll just say as a caveat, the reason I bring that up is I wanna share a little bit about my experience with my husband as a coach, because I relate to a lot of this and I think it's gonna be really valuable for my listeners. So tell me.

 

Erin Aquin: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, at first I think I was flying under the radar with my business. It wasn't the thing that was supporting our family. It wasn't like making a lot of money for those first few years, which. I thought was a big problem. But then I realized that we kind of got at the pivot point and then Steve left the corporate world. And then my business was kind of, it. It's weird. It almost felt like I was a little jealous. I was like, this is, so, as I kind of alluded to, I thought, "This is so easy for you. You're just strolling on in to a fully functioning business. And I've worked so hard to get here." There was, there was some like internal stuff that I did need coaching on.

 

And then also I think kind of having the, the slight power dynamic shift where, in every area of our life, we pretty much make decisions together, you know, we're pretty intuitive on how we make big decisions like what country we're gonna live in, or whether we're gonna buy a house or a car. It's pretty easy.

 

But with the business, I was like, I am the CEO of this corporation. I'm the backstop, I'm the person who needs to be okay and has to live with the consequences of the decisions. And Steve has, of course, been an entrepreneur for a long time on and off, but I think I felt very, not, maybe not jealous, it was more like possessive of the business at first.

 

Molly Claire: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Erin Aquin: And I was trying to approach decision making within how we were doing things from the way that we normally do things in our marriage when it became clear after we had tried some things, you know, done some experiments where I felt like, "Ooh, I'm carrying the weight of this and the consequence of this by myself. And if I don't step up and kind of say, Hey, I'm a hundred percent shareholder here and I'm gonna say yes or no to these particular projects or these particular partnerships", it was really kind of like a next level of me stepping up and taking care of the business while learning how to manage someone who objectively knows a lot more about managing people than I do.

 

So I've been very lucky to have somebody who is so collaborative like Steve, to teach me how to manage, even though the person I was managing was him. I've learned a lot. But it did take a while to kind of separate this is where we make decisions together, this is where I ultimately can consult you, but I have to make the ultimate decision by myself. And now we're partnering together in more of a co-founder way with our new brand. So it's probably gonna be a new lesson learned for me.

 

Molly Claire: Yeah. Yeah. I, I really appreciate you sharing all of this because I think it's normal, it's real, and I'll share some of my experiences as well with this. And it also made me think that everyone listening should go listen to the episode of your podcast that we recorded a few weeks ago, where we were actually having a conversation about women and men and, you know, mom-preneurs and such.

 

Because as you were talking, so much of that conversation was coming to my mind, kind of this dynamic, this sort of power situation of like, who's the boss here? How does this all work? And, and it's not, it's not easy. It's not easy. And I'll say, Erin, that I experienced some similar feelings and also some other feelings as well. My husband is a coach and I had my coaching business, you know, long before I met him. And I've trained coaches and kind of been, you know, somewhat of a, a leader in this space, in the life coach school in particular. And yeah, we've had a similar experience where some things indeed have been easier for him because, to your point, Steve, right,

 

Like actually, I wanna highlight Steve's point before I go down this track about who you know, Steve. Because you're like, I, especially for you coaches who are like trying so hard to like fight your way into this wild world of like online marketing. Meet people, talk to people, know people, put yourself out there because it does make a huge difference, right?

 

Yeah. Okay, so back to what I was saying with, you know, our situation is in some ways, certainly it made it easier for my husband. Although I'm sure that I wanted to give him all this advice and sometimes it's like, "Yeah, thanks, I'll do my own thing, right?" So that was certainly there.

 

But the truth of it is, and I saw this so clearly, is for every coach listening, and for you two, and for me and for my husband, we have to create our own success. And no matter how much you had done to lay the foundation in a business, Steve, you still had to face your own fears, your own doubts, your own insecurities, like build up your own space there and no one could do that for you.

 

And I think as coaches, when we're looking for someone to help us in our business, we don't realize it, but we're kind of looking for someone to give us that part and allow us to bypass that part. And we just can't, If we're going to succeed, if we're really gonna stand up as a leader in our space, that internal work, it has to be done by you, right? .Yeah.

 

Steve Haase: Yeah. And that, that internal work is going to look like something in the world. It's gonna look like the things you create, the way you put yourself out there, how you talk about your programs, how you engage with people.

 

But I love your point about, you know, we have this idea that "I just wish I could..." fill in the blank. "I just wish I could join somebody's coach coaching organization and then it'll all be set for me." Like, no, there's always going to be a set of problems that you have to deal with. The path you take will determine your set of problems.

 

Molly Claire: Exactly. Yes, exactly. It's so true. I, just this morning my husband and I were talking about how, you know, as he has been building his business and certainly, you know, I've helped here, there and he's asked for things, but like everything he's done, he's created because he has to show up, right? All of you coaches listening, you have to show up and the effort that he's putting in now is going to pay off much more in the long term. Even then, right now. Right.

 

And so I, I wanna get back on track, but I'll just throw out there as well that I did feel a sense of feeling like, maybe possessive is a good word. Kind of like, "Hey, this is my space. Like I'm pretty independent and I'm really, you know, proud of what I've created and all of this." And it felt challenging to me in ways I didn't realize.

 

And along those lines for all of you coaches, it's like we think, "Well, if I have enough coaching skills, enough emotional management, if I'm smart enough and wise enough and intuitive enough, then I'll be able to go into this situation and I'll be so different in this situation because I'll be so emotionally mature. Whatever that means." We get into it and we have the same feelings everyone has and thank. We have this work as a resource to help us navigate it, but it's never going to mean that we're kind of like, off the hook from having to have those feelings come up.

 

Erin Aquin: That is so true. And I think that sometimes people confuse being emotionally mature and managing their emotions with not having any emotions. Like I think that there's some like high bar that's on some supernatural level where people think to have managed emotions means I'm not feeling anything. It's like, no, it means that I can say out loud that I felt possessive about my business, and I had to find ways to deal with that, manage that. Our brand probably could have come together a lot sooner if that wasn't there. But it was there and because of that we learned so many things.

 

Molly Claire: Yes. Because it was such an important part of the process. Maybe faster, maybe not, Maybe that was exactly. What I find sometimes with those things is what seems to slow us is actually what accelerates the process long term. Because you have to go through that to learn this and then it accelerates it.

 

And I think also layered on top of what you just said, Erin, is not only do we think that it means that we are somehow above the human experience, but then when we're not, we criticize ourselves like, "I should be managing this better. I shouldn't be feeling this, I shouldn't be thinking this." And that's really what sets us back, right? Is the judgment about it, not actually having those feelings of possessive or jealous or whatever those feelings might be, right? Yeah. This is such a great conversation. I love this.

 

Okay, so, so we now know a little bit about where each of you started. What would you say has been the most challenging in now coming together in this business and kind of, you know, letting one another be a part of your business and also bringing other people in?

 

Steve Haase: Well, for me there's tons of challenges, but the thing that has made it, really interesting, like the glue amidst all the challenges is our vision, which we decided when we started working together. We are here to help people realize the life the universe is dreaming for them.

 

Molly Claire: Okay, say that one. Let's just say it one more time. . .

 

Steve Haase: Well, we created this company, Super Abound exists to help people realize the life the universe is dreaming for them.

 

Molly Claire: So beautiful, amazing.

 

Steve Haase: And so right with that as the foundation we're like, "Why would we not partner with this? Why would we not want to bring as many people as possible into this, including each other?" Like, let's get dirty with all the fear and possessiveness and doubt and conflict and, you know, stress on a relationship of working together all day long. All that stuff. Let's, let's do it because this is worth it. And I think on the other side, there's gonna be something even more beautiful, more valuable, than what we could create on our own.

 

Molly Claire: That's amazing.

 

Erin Aquin: Yeah. And I think the challenge with that too was for a long time I kind of thought like formalizing a vision and having like a working set of values that's on my desk that I can look over at when I make any decision. I kind of just thought that was like corporation busy work. Like I didn't really take that part seriously. And then I realized that what I had been doing on my own, could never work with another person in there who has a amazing brain, a lot of creative ideas, unless we sort of had a checklist of how we were gonna make decisions, what experiments we were gonna try. Cause we, you know, were not people who are sitting around thinking like, what should we post today? What should we say? What can we try next week? We're like, we have 10,000 ideas and we need to pick like a couple. We need to pick a couple to focus on.

 

Molly Claire: Yeah.

 

Erin Aquin: So I think the challenge for me was I had just been used to doing everything kind of on the fly, winging it for a long time and coming together with someone who thought in quarters and thought in like, "Let's do some long term planning". It required me to step up and treat my business like a business rather than just like the fun way I get to help people in the world.

 

So concretizing the vision. Having working values was a challenge for me, but once we did it, I'd say things have become much easier.

 

Steve Haase: And more fun. Our values, one of them is we expect magic. And so we're just like dreaming things up. Like how can we bring more magic to the world today? How can we? One of them is self investing is non-negotiable. How do we take even better care of ourselves so that we can, speak with integrity as we ask our clients to do the same thing?

 

Molly Claire: Yeah. Okay. I wanna pause on the investing thing that you brought up because this has been on my mind working with clients. And then I do wanna circle back to the partnership discussion because I've had experience with a business partnership. My husband and I have discussed the idea of partnering, and I know a lot of you listening have considered a partnership business. I know many of you have considered doing business with your spouse, and so I wanna talk about that.

 

I wanna, you know, share my thoughts and insights and also, Steve and Erin, hear from you on that as well, because I know a lot of people think about that and, I think it's a good thing to think about before jumping in. So tell me again what your value is, that statement about investing?

 

Steve Haase: Erin is the queen of self investing, but I'll say the value, it's self investing is non-negotiable.

 

Molly Claire: Non-negotiable. The reason I wanna pause on this is I know all of you coaches listening have conversations in your head and out loud about should I spend more money on my business when I haven't made the money back? That's what I hear a lot and my philosophy on that is, you're never gonna make that money back. That money was spent. That money is like going forward, right? You get to, you get to bring in way more than that money, but that money is never coming back. Right. And a lot of fear.

 

And I see both sides. I see where people can spend frivolously, whatever that means, right? Where we're just like spending to solve our problems. And I see the opposite end of that, where people are fearful of spending and really kind of wanting to have a very, a business where it's like, spend a little, make some spend, make, spend, make. And it's, it's kind of this very controlled, fearful approach.

 

And I have to say to say I relate to that approach probably earlier in my life, but I have seen now more than ever that, especially if you expect and believe that you are building a business that is going to be expansive, that is going to allow you more freedom, that is going to be something that benefits the world and benefits you long term, you 100% have to invest time and money in yourself and in your business. Because we really kind of expect a lot from this baby business, don't we? It's like, "Oh, I, here I am. I'm showing up. I've got this, and I should just be making money."

 

But it, it just doesn't, it doesn't work that way. If it's really gonna be big and magical and amazing, you have to know you're laying the foundation. So I have, I just, I have to say it. Especially now, because everyone's, you know what's going on with the economy. The world's upside down. This is the time to like hunker down and I disagree.

 

Erin Aquin: Me too. Yeah. You know, it's really funny. Just like on that point, this is part of, I think we, we have a ringer belief here. Like, our belief is that the universe is on our side and like wants us all to succeed. So we do kind of make decisions like if this is just an opportunity for us, is this gonna help us realize our vision and values? Yes. So we make a lot of investments kind of based on if we know that we're successful, it's a done deal. Is this something that brings us closer towards that, or is this a distraction? So we make decisions about our investments that way, about, experiments in the business that way.

 

But like a fun thing happened last night, we were talking about making a sizable investment. and we kind of talked about it. We're like, "Intuitively this feels like a yes. We've done our due diligence on it. We're thinking we're gonna do this." Steve happened to check his email and got a huge contract that we had had out come in with a yes as well. So the second we made that decision about our investment, it's like, "Oh good. The money that we were gonna spend on that, it's coming back around." It's not that money. It's different money, but it's

 

Molly Claire: Right, right.

 

Erin Aquin: Really fun when like you get those little yes nods.

 

Molly Claire: Yes. It flows in and it flows out.

 

Erin Aquin: Right, exactly.

 

Steve Haase: Well, and the layers and levels of what it means to self invests are really important as well. Because, as coaches, we find it really important to always make sure there's a coach in our world. Right now we're working with a book coach. So we're writing a book, so we've got someone that we're working with. Erin just finished up the time with her one-on-one coach. Like there's always some kind of investment in the benefits of having a coach. Otherwise, how are you gonna sell coaching with integrity?

 

You're like, "You should totally have a coach, but I'm not gonna pay for that." You know, so we're always self investing with how coaching is uplifting our life, but the self investment also goes to how is our mental, spiritual, emotional health, physical health. Yeah. Erin got a 97 sleep score last night, like 97 out of the hundred on the on the ordering. Right. How do you even do that?

 

Molly Claire: What? I'm so jealous!

 

Erin Aquin: Nine hours in bed.

 

Molly Claire: I didn't even know that was possible.

 

Erin Aquin: Yes. That's not my highest score that I've ever had.

 

Steve Haase: I've never had a 97.

 

Molly Claire: You need to be my sleep coach. I'm not gonna tell you what my sleep scores are. We'll, we'll save that for another episode. Ok, keep going.

 

Steve Haase: But this is, it's something that we, that we share, that we talk about, because you can't just show up for a client if you're not showing up for yourself.

 

Molly Claire: A hundred percent. And I've been talking so much about this because with, you know, enrolling for the advanced certification for coaches who work with moms, and we talk a lot about how moms and women struggle to invest in themselves. And it's almost like sometimes, I don't know if you've seen this to be true as well with your clients, but it's like, okay, well, sometimes I can justify investing in my business as a woman, but then like, you know, the parts of me that are personal, they probably shouldn't get as much investment, which is crazy, right? When we're like the CEO of our business.

 

And that's part of why in my community, the Masterful Coach Collective, we, it's not just business, it's business mastery, it is life. We have a full pillar on all that life, and then this coaching skill mastery, because it's, if the life is out of balance, nothing's gonna work, right?

 

Erin Aquin: Yeah. Like, yeah. Nothing lands with your clients if, you know, if you haven't slept.

 

Molly Claire: Yeah. Okay. Erin, we're gonna have to do a whole episode on sleep scores.

 

Erin Aquin: There's no, I have no judgment. I have no judgment. .

 

Molly Claire: I know, I know. I might have a little bit of judgment. No, I'm just kidding. I just, I'm really amazed at that because sleep, I actually keep a really good sleep schedule. But, I don't know. My sleep quality is not amazing. So, anyway, I digress.

 

Ok, let's, let's circle back to, the partnership because, so I had a business partnership with my sister and very similar to what you all did, right? We had our values and I, and we were really always united in our values and our care for our clients and, and we made really great things together. And for us, we had very different working styles that in many ways complimented and enhanced the business and in other ways created challenges, right? As those things do.

 

And I think for us, ultimately, what we really wanted in a business and to focus on started to become more and more different. And so it almost felt like I could feel energy wise in our business, a business can't thrive if you're kind of both looking a little bit separate direction. And, and it was challenging in a lot of ways.

 

And as far as my, my, you know, my husband became a coach, just, I think it's been like a year and a half ago, almost two years ago, that he started. At this point, I don't think I would want to do a business together. I don't think that's wrong. I mean, I think that deciding to do a business together, I don't think should be taken, not lightly. Not that we need to panic or worry about it. Right. But there are things to consider and I'll share with you what I think and then I definitely wanna hear from the two of you. Obviously, is your vision and mission united?

 

Looking at kind of your, the different gifts that you bring together, because I think a partnership should have very often, to me it's like this balance between enough things that are similar and aligned and yet each bringing a different sort of value or different gifts to the partnership. Right. Because, why have a partner if you're not bringing different things? And yet, there have to be certain things aligned.

 

And so, yeah, for me, I don't know. I actually don't know that I desire to do a partnership business with my husband. And, and I'm, I'm not sure that it would work very well for us. But tell me, tell me your thoughts about what you think people, you know, should consider and what would make one work and possibly not from your perspective.

 

Erin Aquin: Yeah, and I mean it's, it's unique to like a relationship situation. I think that sometimes people just get into business with their partner because they're there.

 

Steve Haase: That's another body.

 

Erin Aquin: You're, yeah, you're like, you can do some stuff I don't wanna do, which Steve, thank you. You sometimes do a lot of the things I don't wanna do, but I have known that I wanted to work with Steve since we were dating. Like one, one of my favorite things to do with Steve when he would come to visit me was he like, he made me have a website when I was back, when I was a yoga teacher he was like, "You need an online presence. You need to like put your classes online, write a blog." And I was like, "This is the most fun". Like, I think a lot of times people in relationships who have businesses find that they like talk about the business too much and they can't separate it out.

 

I love talking about our business. I love writing our book together. I feel like I get into Steve's brain in a way that we, we probably wouldn't if we were just like talking about the kids or like doing things around the house. There is a level of intimacy and learning more about this person that I've been married to for eight years? How long we've married? Eight years. Yeah. There's something like fun about that for me. So I've kind of known from day one that that would be a possibility. Teaching and all of the things.

 

But what I think, to your point about everybody has to bring something else to the table, from a business perspective, Steve brings to the table a huge network of people in the tech space. He knows, like 40 people who are CEOs of, you know, 7, 8, 9-figure businesses. I bring kind of the wild entrepreneurs who are like, "I don't know how I did this, but here we go". And I think that our networks also are,yeah, so I'm learning more about the things I need to know about for my business, of course, but being able to step in and have immediate rapport with a CEO of a tech company because they know and trust Steve and they know that I'm his partner and they've seen us teaching together. You know, from a purely business standpoint, he's a huge asset. Thanks, Steve

 

Molly Claire: I love it. Yeah. How does it feel to be a huge asset?

 

Steve Haase: It's funny cuz when she started talking, I was like, "Oh God, what do I bring? Oh, no. Am I gonna get fired on the podcast? I don't think I bring any value here!"

 

Molly Claire: We'll have it on video the moment you got fired. That's awesome. Yeah, I think, I mean I love all of that because it's great when you, and I wanna highlight this as well, kind of going back to this idea of should you have a partnership, should you not?

 

Because also, I think just because someone else brings something different, it doesn't mean you should have a business partnership with them, right? And there are different ways you can partner because you can have a business together as a partnership and you can also partner in business, right?

 

And so there are so many ways you can do that. And so, yeah. I just, I love this conversation. I appreciate this and I know what's really helpful to my listeners. Anything else you, Steve, you wanna add or either of you have to say about partnership and working together or not?

 

Steve Haase: Yeah, I think just, whatever road you decide to go down, it's gonna be significant, right? You, you think, "Well, hey, I'll just be a guest on your podcast this one time. But then, like, how is that gonna make sense? Unless you like, become a thing and okay, well then let's do this thing." And, and so like, things can, can start to take on momentum. So to your point, rather than, "Hey, let's just try it out, see how it goes," really think through, is this something that I want to be doing for the next couple years? Because if it, if it starts to make sense, and if it starts to feel good, and if there's some momentum here, then it's gonna continue. But then there's that whole host of problems that come up from that thing.

 

You know, when we're working together, the benefits include getting to talk about these things that we're so passionate about getting to work together in a different kind of intimate way. Being on that wild ride together. And then the drawbacks are being in each other's business, like having to critique each other's work, having to give feedback on the chapter that you wrote and having to receive feedback on the chapter that you wrote.

 

Like this wasn't the pretty part of working together. But you know, as you think about it and as you experience it, if the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, then, you know, don't be afraid.

 

Molly Claire: Yeah. Yeah. This is awesome. I appreciate this so much, and in a second, I actually, I want you guys to tell my audience about the super cool thing that you're doing with your PDF and charity and such, before we wrap up.

 

But this has been a great conversation and I think all of you listening considering partnerships and whatever that means. I hope thinking through these things has been really helpful for you. And one question I wanna pose to all of you is why are you wanting that partnership? Because sometimes I think we want that partnership because we think it's gonna make everything easier and we think it's gonna make everything work, just like we said earlier, right?

 

Like, "Oh, if we do this, then everything will work and then everything will be easier". And it's not, It's exactly what you said, Steve, earlier. You just, whatever path you choose will determine what those challenges are, right? What the, I don't remember exactly what you said, but something along those lines. And so it's not like you get to bypass that or then this will be easier.

 

Certainly probably some things will be easier, but you will have just a different set of things to work through. So for any of you listening, if that's it, it's like, "Oh, this will be better", just know that there's just gonna be a new set of, I hate to use the word problems, but a new set of things that you'll experience and go through.

 

And I think, you know, with my husband and I having eight kids together, it kind of feels like that's enough of a corporation that we're running together. So I will continue to stay in my own space for the time being at least.

 

Alright, so tell us about this awesome thing that my audience can grab from you and why it's even more awesome.

 

Steve Haase: It's called the Super Abound treasure chest, and it has some of our best gems within it, right? They're not tools, it's a treasure chest, so they're gems. And it includes, how to get focused on where to put effort in your business. Overcoming imposter syndrome. What are some of the other goodies in there?

 

Erin Aquin: We talk about abundant selling. How to sell in a way that feels like you are doing good in the world and, and not like, "Oh, please like me and give me your money". Which I think coaches specifically, I know we wrap up a lot of stuff in our sales process. And this is actually something that kind of came out of a partnership discussion, Steve, I can't even remember what the idea was, but he posed an idea about how we were going to celebrate our new brand. And I was listening to him talk and because I've learned how to present my counter ideas in our partnership, I was like, "You know, I don't like any of that. I don't wanna rope people in to like getting excited about our new logo" or like, "Hey, big announcement. Check out a website." I, that doesn't like, feel exciting to me as a potential customer. So we decided that, we're recording this in November, 2022, so this may be done by the time it comes out.

 

But I decided that rather than try to do a big Facebook campaign or have a launch party online, for every person that downloads that treasure chest, we would donate a dollar to the David Suzuki Ocean Sustainability Fund.

 

Molly Claire: Amazing.

 

Erin Aquin: For the whole month.

 

Molly Claire: Amazing. And say just like a little bit about what that is. Where the money's going to be donated.

 

Steve Haase: Yeah, so it's a foundation that is basically focused on environmental sustainability. It's based in Canada, which so are we, so then we can make a charitable contribution for the business, et cetera, et cetera. But it's, it's a great cause and I'm passionate about the environment as well as, you know, many other causes. But that's the one that we said we're going to support that for this month. So climate change, sustainability, all that good stuff.

 

Molly Claire: Amazing. So if you want these amazing gems in this treasure chest that are going to give all of you great insights, guidance, help in your business and give to a good cause all at the same time, this is the place to go. So I'll have the, the link in the show notes here. So Amazing.

 

And do you, and do you have an easy link that you could tell our audience? Yeah, go ahead.

 

Steve Haase: It can head over to besuperabound.com/treasure.

 

Molly Claire: Awesome and amazing. Thank you so much for being here, both of you and I look forward to more adventures to come in our businesses.

 

Erin Aquin: Yes.

 

Steve Haase: Thank you, Molly.

 

Erin Aquin: I can't wait to hear what we'll be talking about in like three years from now.

 

Molly Claire: I know, right? . All right. Awesome. Thanks so much, you guys.

 

Outro: Thanks for listening to The Masterful Coach Podcast. If you’re ready for complete support as you build your coaching business, check out Molly’s collaborative community, The Masterful Coach Collective, it’s a place where you’ll have access to the best experts in the biz, community support and guidance as you build your perfect business 90 days at a time. Visit www.mollyclaire.com for details.