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- Hello, hello, hey there, hey there.
Welcome in to another edition of Between the Lines.
I'm Josh Ellis, editor-in-chief of SUCCESS magazine,
and we're going inside the pages
of the September/October issue.
Matter of fact, we're going to the cover story.
It doesn't get much bigger than that.
It's Mindy and Glenn Stearns.
We put the cover line "Work Better Together:
Lessons from Power Partners."
Matt Crossman, you interviewed them, you wrote it.
Tell us about Mindy and Glenn.
They're a pretty fun couple, aren't they?
- Yeah, fun, that would be the very first word I would use.
Just charming and funny
and bouncing ideas off each other.
And just a lot of fun to talk to.
And they've earned that fun, if I could put it that way,
by Glenn, especially having been through
some trials and tribulations in his life
and came out smiling on the other end.
So yeah, it was lots of fun to talk to them
and learn from them and get to know them
over the course of that story.
- One of the things that drew me to their story
was that more of us than ever are really,
working closely with our significant other.
Maybe we're not business partners,
maybe we're just like working from home now
and like they're on the other end of the house
and we're trying to co-exist more than ever.
But two people who have been successful in their own right,
Mindy in sort of the entertainment industry
and Glenn with his lending company
and of course, "Undercover Billionaire"
on Discovery Channel.
They've now come together on their own lending business
and they both bring something unique to it.
- Yeah, that's definitely true.
And it's funny that you mentioned
couples working together or near each other.
My wife and I both work from home
and we'll like be texting each other,
even though we're only,
probably, she's 40 feet above me upstairs,
I'm in my basement office, she's in the upstairs office
and we're in the same house, texting each other anyway,
which is just a funny fact of 21st century life.
But you're right,
they do bring completely different skillsets.
Mindy is much more gregarious and wide open.
And Glenn is like that too, but much a lesser extent.
And he comes from a business where,
it's very much a black and white, bottom line,
you either qualify for a loan or you don't.
And so I think they make a good couple in that sense
that they sort of interlock in the important parts,
but then they also broaden each other out.
- Their story is, as is usually the case,
the cover story is sort of the impetus
for the theme of the issue overall,
and we call this issue,
"Get Stronger Together."
And it's because we, all of us,
whether it's our significant other,
or just co-workers or family members or the...
Our gratitude that we have for our customers, right?
We all have great need for other people.
And none of us are a success in our own right.
And so, I just, I really...
One of the things that I found so interesting is
that, like, it seems like Glenn just never met an enemy.
He's still like close friends with his two ex wives.
That's...
That takes a big person.
- You know, that, you are exactly right.
And that was probably the single character trait
I wanted to understand the most out of Glenn
where after reading their story, and not just with his,
the mother of his first child, his ex-wife,
but even people he went into business with,
he is an absolute master at difficult conversations
coming out of them where both people are happy.
And I asked him that, I said, "In reviewing your life
and understanding the trials and tribulations,
it seemed like every turning point came
because you had a really difficult conversation with them."
And Mindy kind of chimed in and said,
"You are exactly right.
And I kind of wanna hear the answer
because I'm not exactly sure how he does it."
And his answer was basically that he knows
that if you have a difficult conversation with somebody
and come out the other end with a positive outcome,
that you are going to have more respect for that person
that you had that conversation with.
So, he tries to be that person,
who can have the difficult conversation
and resolve whatever the issue was.
And he really is a master at that.
It's really quite incredible.
And it's because he's...
I think it's like a lack of ego
that he's not afraid to say either,
"I screwed up and you need to help me, get this fixed,"
or "This is a bad situation that we need to not make worse."
Whatever it is, he's perfectly comfortable,
admitting that he needs help.
- You've been married quite a while.
You had an anniversary, not too long ago,
maybe like 20 years, something like that?
- We had 21 in May,
but we joked that we had our 20th anniversary plus one
in May because we couldn't really celebrate it
the May before.
Yeah, 21 years.
- I think that our writers learn something
from every story that they do.
And you've been married longer than Mindy and Glenn.
But is there anything that you took away from the way
that they interacted that, you found to be,
instructive in your own relationship,
or maybe not even with your wife,
but just other people in general?
- Yeah, I would say a couple of things.
One would be Glen's ability to have difficult conversations.
I mean, that my interview with him was what?
Two months ago, I think.
And I'm literally applying that already
to be more intentional about those conversations,
basically based on what he told me,
that the outcome of that afterward,
that having the courage to set up
that difficult conversation is going to
strengthen the relationship with that person.
Even if the outcome, you don't love,
but the courage to set up that conversation is
the key thing.
And really, I think the only thing is,
they just don't take themselves too seriously.
I mean they goof on each other.
If you listen to their podcast,
they both finish each other's sentences in a positive way,
but then cut out each other.
And they're both just kind of open and honest
and there's nothing that they're gonna say to each other
that's gonna make each other mad.
I guess I would put it that way.
- Well, Matt, it was an enjoyable story.
I think that they always are
when our writers enjoy working on them.
So that showed through in your piece.
I hope everybody, if you haven't already, check it out.
It's on the success.com homepage
or on news stands everywhere.
SUCCESS magazine, September/October issue.
Matt, will be back very soon.
You've got two stories in this issue.
So, looking forward to talking about that one,
until next time,
we'll see you on another edition of "Between the Lines."
So long everybody.
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