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📍 I thought in a relationship it was me and another person, andthat was it. It's either what I want or it's what they want.

There's actually a third entity. There's me, there's you, and then there's our relationship. If there's only two entities, if it's only me and you, that sometimes makes us opponents, 'cause it's either what I want or it's what you want.

You've built the business, you're crushing it in your career, you've scaled your impact. But are you winning at home? Welcome to the 200% Marriage podcast. We're Meredith and Craig, and we're here to help you kill that domestic drag and turn your partner into your most elite teammate. From Russian taxi mishaps to hailstorms on the summit, we're sharing the raw and real stories and tactical drills you need to move out of roommate-ville and into your 200% life.

So grab your gear. It's time to build an unstoppable team. Let's dive in

📍Welcome back to another episode of the Two 100 Percent Marriage podcast with Meredith and Craig.If you're following along, we're reading the book The 200% Marriage: Your Winning Playbook to Be an Unstoppable Team,and we are on chapter 18.

Which you happened to write, so you will be reading.

I did.Chapter 18: The Little Things Are The Big Things."The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra," Jimmie Johnson.Like all teams, the best ones also experience ups and downs,but what sets an unstoppable team apart is that regardless of whether things are up or down, they always show up for themselves and each other every single day.

Unstoppable teams are made up of people who are always thinking of ways to put the team first.On unstoppable teams, you won't see one player carrying the load, working their ass off, hustling to make plays, while their teammates stand around watching or doom scrolling on their phones during practice. That team won't win. That team is very stoppable.

An unstoppable team is filled with individuals who chip in and do whatever is necessary to advance the team.Sometimes that's taking an extra shift because someone's hurt, or maybe it's noticing your teammate missed an assignment, so you pick up the slack and you make the tackle because it needs to be done.

And if we need to spell this out in marriage terms, and we do since we're writing the book on marriage, let's get real for a minute.If you see your teammate isn't feeling well or is struggling, pick up the damn slack.Handle the things that they would typically do.If you see a pile of laundry to be folded, instead of walking by it 1,000 times wondering when it'll get done, wonder no more.

Fold it or hire someone to fold it. Either way, just get it done and help them out.We hear it all the time from clients, especially women, that they're carrying the mental load of managing the household on top of everything else, and it's burning them out.Don't ask what your teammate needs you to do.

Look around, see what needs to be done, and do it.Being a good teammate is stepping in and taking some of that pressure off.Some days we just don't have it, and other days we do. Unstoppable teams always find a way. The players on the field give everything they have that day. The players on the bench cheer each other on, hold each other accountable, and do their jobs to the best of their ability.

And just like in sports, your role on the team will change depending on the situation.Let's go back to when I decided to run my first marathon. You'll remember, Mer had no interest in such a crazy endeavor. She's not about to run 42.2 kilometers, 26.2 miles, if you speak American,unless something is chasing her.

Her role as my teammate wasn't to run beside me, it was to cheer me on.She helped me figure out my training plan. She sent me encouraging texts that my AirPods would read to me mid-run. And on race day, she did what any good teammate would do. She stood at the finish linewith the world's biggest hug, and cheered like a maniac as I crossed it.

Full disclosure, when I saw her at the finish line and got that hug, I cried like a baby. Physical pain from running 42.2 kilometers? Sure. But if I'm really honest, the tears were all emotions, and I couldn't hold it together.Were Mer's contributions as hard as running a marathon? Probably not, but they mattered.

Here's the bottom line: Your relationship is defined by the little things. Movies and television train us to believe that grand gestures are what keep love alive. Spoiler alert, they're not. Grand gestures are fun, sure, but they don't define your relationship.Your relationship is built in the everyday, in the dull, mundane, ordinary moments of your life.

It's the same concept as working out. When you decide you wanna get fit, you could hit the gym for eight hours in one day. But no matter how hard you crush it, that's not how fitness results are made. In fact, it won't even get you anywhere near the same results as eating and sleeping well, then hitting the gym for 30 minutes per day for 16 days.

It's the same amount of gym time, but it's way more effective.Real results come from your daily choices: eating healthy, moving your body, drinking water, and prioritizing sleep. The little things you do every day add up to significant results over time.Real results come from consistency, not intensity.

Your marriage works the same way. It's about the little choices you make daily. Picking up their favorite snack while you're out, refilling their water bottle on the nightstand, bringing them coffee without them asking, leaving a love note on the steering wheel, filling up their gas tank, sending a quick, loving, flirty text during the day, asking about their day and actually caring about their answer,letting them in on what's going on with you, standing beside them as they work through fear or limiting beliefs, supporting them as they work to achieve a goal, celebrating them when they hit the mark, giving them a hug and a shoulder when they miss the mark.

Those little actions compound. They build trust, connection, and love in a way no grand gesture ever could. Oh, hang on. Mer has something she wants to say.

Just hopping in here for a quick sec to say when your teammate does something for you, big or small, say thank you.

Appreciation is everything. It's the secret sauce.We've lost so much appreciation in our lives, not just for our teammates and the little things they do for us and for our lives, but for ourselves, too. For our bodies, for the roof over our heads, for the fact that we have someone to do life with.When I was single, for a decade,my dream was to have a teammate to do life with.

Just yesterday morning before we got out of bed, Craig and I had a moment of quiet cuddling, and I had a sudden attack of gratitude. For 10 years, I wished for precisely this moment, and now I sometimes take it for granted.Having someone you can hug whenever you ask for one is a huge gift.

Those quiet few minutes of cuddling made my whole day, and it wasn't even 7:00 AM.We all love to feel appreciated. Honestly, one of the most common issues we hear from couples is that at least one of them doesn't feel appreciated.When you show your teammate appreciation and gratitude, often it changes everything.

You see it in sports all the time.Baseball players who hit a home run or even just a sacrifice fly, they don't return to a silent seated dugout. They're met with cheers, fist bumps, and high fives. Even if they strike out, they get a good effort.We even see it at our 14-year-old niece's volleyball games.

Someone hits their serve into the net, and all her teammates rush over to give her a high five.

About showing up for each other no matter what. Bring that appreciation energy into your marriage. You'll feel the shift almost immediately.

Appreciation changes the game.Okay, mini appreciation rant complete.Back to Craig.

We've made the case that unstoppable teams show up every day for themselves and each other. But let's hammer it home with a quick story about some clients.They came to us pretty disconnected. The most minor things spiraled into arguments that would last multiple days, sometimes weeks. After digging deeper, we realized she was drained.

Her battery was in the red. She was carrying so much of the mental load at home that she had nothing left.When you have nothing left in the tank, everything feels harder. Your resilience is lower. You get annoyed and frustrated more quickly, and your emotions run closer to the surface. This is super common, by the way.

When you operate and make decisions in a high-emotion state, they are more often than not, not yourbest decisionsAs our friend Sharon Lechter says, "High emotion equals low intelligence."Our client needed to fill her tank, but she felt like she didn't have time for that with all the stuff she had for the kids, the business, the house, and just life in general.

She was basically saying her car was running low on gas, but she didn't have time to stop at a gas station to fill it up. Think of it like a road trip. If your tank is running on E and you don't have time to fill up, would you skip it?You would not. You know that if you don't stop, you'll end up stranded on the side of the road.

In fact, it's so ludicrous you wouldn't even consider it. You'd make the time to stop and fill up.She had to realize at some level that filling up her own tank wasn't optional.It was an absolute necessity.The more she showed up for herself, the more she'd have to give.Eventually, she made her recharge non-negotiable.

With our help, they worked together to create a plan that would let her start her day with an hour to herself. Her husband stepped up, getting the kids up, fed, and off to school. By taking on some of her load, he freed her up to show up better for herself, for him, and for their family.

Most people think that it's conflict that kills your connection. It's not. They're wrong. Your connection doesn't die from conflict.It dies from neglect.You have to show up intentional and put in the work every day. So if you see your teammate struggling, check in on them with love and pick up the slack.

And if you're the one struggling, raise your hand and say, "I need help."Admittedly, putting the team first wasn't always something I was good at in relationships. I played sports, and although I learned this on the field, ice, and court, I didn't take the lesson home. In my first marriage, I didn't connect the dots.

You know how that ended. Learn from my mistakes so you don't have to make them yourself.Marriage shifts you from a one-player game to a team game, and in the team game there are three entities.

You, your teammate, and your team, your relationship.To win, the team has to come first, not your individual needs, not their individual needs. The team's needs.If one player starts thinking they're more important than the team, it's only a matter of time before there's drama in the locker room.The locker room is your bedroom.

You do not want drama in your bedroom. Your bedroom is for two things. Drama is not one of them. The two things are sleep and sex. Those are both good things. Drama is not good. Keep the bedroom for only good things.Being on the same team, moving in sync, working together towards shared goals is a cheat code for life.

Actually, it's the ultimate cheat code.Think back to a time when your relationship felt off. You know the vibe, walking on eggshells and trying to avoid the next blow up, stuck in one of those fights where you just keep going in circles and feeling more like roommates than teammates, and having no clue how to find your way back to each other.

When your relationship feels out of sync, it doesn't just suck, it's also draining your time, energy, focus, and attention. Like, all of it. It's all-consuming. You're distracted at work because you're replaying the last argument in your head on a loop. You're googling how to reconnect with your spouse at 1:00 AM.

You're walking around with this constant stress cloud hanging over you because home doesn't feel right.And here's the kicker. While you're burning through all your energy trying to figure out what's wrong and how to fix it, your teammate is doing the same thing. You're both stuck in this cycle of stress, frustration, and emotional exhaustion.

That's not the formula for an unstoppable team building a huge, extraordinary life together.Now hit pause on that thought for a second. Think back to a time when you were in sync,when you and your teammate were on the same page. It felt easy. You couldn't stop laughing together.

You looked forward to spending time together because it felt good.Here's the difference. When things are good, there's momentum in the right direction, so it doesn't take much effort. That doesn't mean no effort, it means less effort. You're in maintenance mode. Maintenance mode requires less effort. But when things are bad, you're in repair mode.

It's like trying to swim against the tide with waves crashing over you while you scream, "Wait, where's the shore again?"Repair mode takes a lot more effort and resources. Repair mode is exhausting.Being in maintenance mode, on the other hand, is smooth sailing. It frees up all the time, energy, and attention you were spending putting out fires in your relationship, and suddenly you can redirect all that energy toward other things: your health, your business, your big goals in life.

Sounds pretty great, right?It gets better.When you're synced up with your teammate, their energy, time, and attention gets freed up, too, and now your combined energy becomes this unstoppable exponential force that propels you toward your shared goals. It's like rocket fuel for your dreams. Life feels easier when your marriage is thriving, period.

Show up daily. Be a great teammate. Do the little things. Together, you'll be unstoppable. Rule number three: unstoppable teams show up for the team every day.

Nice work.

So that chapter started with a quote from a football coach.

Jimmy Johnson. "

The difference between ordinary andextraordinary is that

little

bit extra." Little

bit. Yeah.

I really like that quote.

Yeah, it's a good quote. And it's true, and it's, it's just talking about the little things, doing the little things.

Ordinary to extraordinary, just do that little extra. Just go the extra mile. You see the laundry, and you, your teammate needs a little help, just- Just do the thing.You don't need to be asked, just pick up the slack wherever.wherever you can add value to them and make them feel seen, appreciated, loved, just do that thing.

It's likewhen I was going to a girls' night, and it was snowy and yucky outside, and you went out and scraped off the truck.

Yeah. I mean, it sucks to do that. Nobody loves going out in the snow, andI... Look, you were l- I don't know, getting ready for your weekend or whatever. Didn't want you rushing, andjust seemed like something that could add some value,that's what it's about, is just get out and, and, and brush off the car if you live someplace where there's snow.

If you don't, good for you.

Y-

yeah.

I think there's onereally important foundational element in this chapter, and it's the three entities. Like, I, I, that's not something I was- I, I really understood before. That I thought in a relationship it was me and there was another person, and that, that was it. There was the two of us in this relationship, and it's either what I want or it's what they want, and that's it.

And there's actually a third entity. There's me, there's you, and then there's our relationship. There's our team.Andit's so much easier to be on the same team when you're acting in service of the team.'Cause if, if there's only two entities, if it's only me and you, then I'm either acting in service of me or I'm acting in service of you, and then that sometimes makes things adversarial, it makes us opponents, 'cause it's either what I want or it's what you want.

When there's a third entity,then we can both serve the team. We can both do what's in the best interest of the team. And so the minute you can reframe the relationshipto beme, you, and us; me, you, and the team; me, you, and the family; whatever that- like, that, that third entity, and then start acting in the best interest of that third entity, of the team, it completely changes the whole frame.

For sure. I've loved sports my entire life, and I'm glad that there's a lot of overlap- ... because I can leverage it into something productive other than just watching sports. Yeah.Because I've learned a lot from sports and teams and being on teams, and it's really important to understand that a team is made of individuals. There'sa hockey team. We're in Canada, a hockey team.Mm-hmm.There's five people on the ice at one time. There's, that's five individuals,ifall, five of those people, were just out for themselves- They would never win. They would just, they would never pass the puck.

Mm-hmm. They would be just looking to score the goal and get the stats- It'd be like- ... and get the contracts ...

U7

hockey. It'd be likeJake down the street.

Yeah.

Nate and Jake when they were- Seven-year-old hockey ... when they, when they were young.

Yeah.

They just wanted the puck and they wanted to go to the net and score.

Mm-hmm. They did not care about passing that puck to their buddy. It's getting better now. Yeah. They're s- now they're starting to pass the puck to their buddy, and now they're starting to win more. But that's the thing, if we're all in it for ourselves, then we're never gonna get anywhere.

But if all five of these people, or two of these people in a, in a marriage, just sacrificethe individual stats, the individual winning, to get on the same page, you're gonna s- go so much further. You're gonna actually win championships. You're gonna become an unstoppable team.

And I love the part about when, when one member of a team puts themselves above the team, their needs above the team.

Mm-hmm. It creates drama in the locker room.

Yeah.

And,we can pick any number of examples from sports about this, but the one that jumps to mind for me is Antonio Brown in football. , he was a cancer in the locker room. He was himself above the team, and most of his teams ... were not winning teams.

his individual stats in all those seasons were fantastic, but his teams that he played on all season long,they didn't have the same success that he did individually because he put himself above the team, and then the team didn't win.

And he's not gonna end up in the Hall of Fame.So thinking ofyour relationship and all the milestones, the winning getting you to your ultimate destination, your, the Hall of Fame of your life-

You gotta put the team first ...

gotta put the team

first. You gotta, it, it's all about winning.

Mm-hmm.

Super Bowls, Stanley Cups, whatever your version of that is, that's what it's ultimately about.

And the only way you get there is if you're putting the team first, and then you're going on andkicking ass and taking names and-

Chewing bubblegum ...

winning lots of games. Chewing bubblegum.

That's it for chapter 18.

Next week,chapter 19. Cool title, Don't Be an Uber Competitive Psycho.

They're all cool titles, but that's an especially good one.

We willtell you what that's all about

next week. Bye

And that's a wrap on this week's briefing. If this episode hit a nerve, don't let your momentum die Head over to the 200percentmarriage.com/unstoppableteam to take the unstoppable team audit. Find out exactly where your domestic drag is hiding so you can start optimizing your team today. And if you love the show, share it with another power couple who refuses to settle for fine, because a 200% life is better with a community.

See you on the next adventure