Renee
If you read last week’s blog, you already know that Mark and I have slightly different relationships with planning. I’m the planner in our marriage. I like knowing where we’re going, when we’re leaving, what we’re doing when we get there, and preferably where we’re eating. I don’t need every minute accounted for, but I find it much easier to relax when I know the important details have been handled.
Mark is much more comfortable leaving room for possibility. He likes knowing generally where we’re headed, but if something more interesting appears along the way, he’s perfectly happy changing course.
After almost 25 years of marriage, I’ve learned that when Mark says, “We’ll figure it out,” he genuinely believes he’s being reassuring.
He is not.
But after writing last week’s blog, we started talking about what if what we each want isn’t as different as it seems. I want a plan because having some certainty gives me the freedom to relax. Mark wants flexibility because leaving room for the unexpected gives him a sense of freedom too.
We’re both looking for freedom. We just have very different ideas about how to get there.
Mark
Last week, we introduced the Six Human Needs framework developed by Cloé Madanes and Tony Robbins. Over the next several weeks, we thought it would be interesting to explore some of those needs through the lens we know best: our marriage, our family, and nearly 15 years of building businesses together.
This week, we’re looking at two needs that can seem like complete opposites: certainty and variety.
Certainty is our need for stability, safety, predictability, and some sense of control over what happens next. Variety is our need for change, surprise, challenge, and new experiences.
We all need some amount of both.
I definitely enjoy possibility. Some of my favorite experiences have happened because something unexpected showed up: a person we didn’t expect to meet, a conversation we didn’t plan to have, an invitation that appeared at exactly the right moment, or an opportunity we never could have anticipated.
My natural response when something new appears tends to be, “What if?”
Renee’s is often, “What will that require?”
And after all these years, I’ve learned that we usually need both questions.
Renee
This would all be much simpler if it only applied to vacations and deciding where we’re going to eat, but we’re also business partners.
And as much as entrepreneurs love talking about freedom, we spend a lot of time trying to create certainty. We want to know how much revenue is coming in next month. We want systems that work consistently, dependable team members, events on the calendar, bills paid on time, clients taken care of, and preferably technology that doesn’t suddenly decide to stop working ten minutes before a Zoom call.
At the same time, neither of us became an entrepreneur because we wanted every day to look exactly the same.
We wanted freedom. We wanted creativity. We wanted to pursue new ideas, meet interesting people, travel, create things that didn’t exist before, and have more control over how we spent our lives.
Apparently, we wanted the adventure of entrepreneurship with the predictability of a paycheck.
Maybe that isn’t as contradictory as it sounds.
Mark
I’ve actually come to appreciate that certainty can create more freedom for adventure.
That probably sounds completely obvious to Renee. It took me a little longer.
When the important things in our businesses are handled, we have more freedom to explore possibilities. When we have systems and people we trust, we can step away. When revenue is more predictable, taking a risk doesn’t feel quite as risky. When we know what’s on the calendar, we can actually see where there’s room to play.
Structure doesn’t necessarily eliminate freedom. Sometimes it creates it.
One of the best examples of this is something we experience every year when we plan the Soulful Leadership Experience.
If you have ever seen one of Renee’s run-of-show documents, you know she takes the word plan seriously. There are times, speakers, slides, transitions, music, notes, and details for virtually every part of the event.
And yet, some of the most powerful moments we’ve experienced at Soulful Leadership have been the ones we couldn’t possibly have put on that document.
A speaker says something unexpected. Someone shares exactly what another person in the room needed to hear. A conversation goes somewhere we hadn’t anticipated. The energy in the room shifts, and suddenly it’s obvious that we need to stay with a moment a little longer.
Those are often the moments people remember.
Renee
And ironically, the run of show is part of what allows me to be present for them.
For me, planning isn’t necessarily about controlling every moment. It’s about handling enough of the details ahead of time that I don’t have to hold them all in my head while the event is happening.
If I know the speakers are prepared, the slides are ready, the music is cued, the team knows what’s happening next, and we have a plan for where the day is going, I can stop thinking about all of those things and pay attention to what’s actually happening in the room.
And sometimes what’s happening in the room is more important than what’s written on my run of show.
That’s where I think my own relationship with planning has changed. A plan can give us direction without becoming something we have to follow blindly. Sometimes having a strong foundation makes it easier to change course because you know what you're changing from and what needs to happen afterward.
Maybe the goal isn’t to control the experience. Maybe it’s to create a container strong enough to hold whatever the experience becomes.
Mark
I love that because it’s exactly what I’m looking for from the other side.
I don’t want the plan to disappear. I just don’t want it to eliminate every possibility we haven’t thought of yet.
We’ve learned at our events that our job isn’t to choose between structure and magic. It’s to create enough structure that people feel held while leaving enough room for the unexpected magic to emerge.
And the more I’ve thought about it, the more I realize that’s a pretty good metaphor for the kind of life we want to build too.
We want businesses with enough structure that they don’t require us to be involved in every single thing, because that gives us the freedom to explore new ideas and opportunities.
We want enough structure in our family life that everyone knows where they need to be and when, but not so much that we can’t decide to do something completely spontaneous.
And we want enough certainty in our marriage to know that we’re there for one another while still continuing to have new experiences, discover new things about each other, and create stories we haven't lived yet.
Renee
I think knowing your partner matters here too, because something that feels exciting to one person can feel unsettling to another.
If I need more certainty in a situation, Mark telling me to “just trust that it will work out” isn't going to suddenly make me feel better. And if Mark is craving possibility, handing him an even more detailed spreadsheet probably won't light him up.
Although I reserve the right to make the spreadsheet anyway.
What we’re getting better at is recognizing that there is a lot of room between completely planned and completely spontaneous.
Maybe I don’t need every answer. I may just need enough information to feel grounded. Maybe Mark doesn’t need to throw out the entire plan. He may simply need enough room inside it to explore.
It turns out we can have roots and wings at the same time.
Mark
And perhaps that’s the gift of being partnered with someone who approaches life differently than you do.
It’s easy to believe the person who sees the world differently is making things more difficult. Sometimes they are. We are married, after all.
But sometimes they’re protecting something important.
Renee’s desire for certainty has created foundations that make so many of our adventures possible. She thinks about the details that keep our businesses, events, and family running.
My desire for possibility often keeps us asking what else might be available. Who haven't we met yet? What haven't we tried? What could this become?
We need both.
The foundation matters, but so does leaving enough room to discover something we couldn't have planned.
Mark & Renee
After almost 25 years of marriage, we’re still figuring out how much planning is enough and how much spontaneity is too much. We probably always will be.
What we're beginning to understand is that certainty and variety don't have to compete. Sometimes the certainty is what makes the variety possible. A good plan doesn't have to tell us exactly how everything will unfold. It can simply give us enough of a foundation that we're free to be present when something unexpected does.
Renee will probably always want to know where we're going, what time we're leaving, and yes, where we're eating. Mark will probably always be wondering what we might discover along the way.
There is actually room for both.
Make the plan. And leave room for the magic.