The Secret to Working With Your Spouse (And Staying Married)

Sean Weisbrot: Welcome back to another episode of the We Live to Build podcast. Entrepreneurs aren't born, they're molded. The people around us help us set expectations for ourselves while understanding the world around us that we often may not be capable of seeing without them helping shine a light for us to see the path forward.

Sean Weisbrot: Sometimes we call them family, friends, advisors, consultants. Everyone is a mentor. Most, if not all of us have had the benefit of one, if not more mentors, and some of us have already realized some or a lot of our potential and have decided to start giving back and helping the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Sean Weisbrot: In this special episode with Aropa Stein, the founder and CEO of hire staff, we talk about our experiences being mentored as well as how we identify potential people we wanna mentor, decide if they're teachable, and what the cross section between what they need help with and what we can help with, and how to keep them honest and responsible and on track to success.

Sean Weisbrot: I had such a blast with Aropa and I wish more episodes could be like this. I hope you enjoy it.

Sean Weisbrot: Welcome to We Live to Build. My name is Sean Weisbrot, and I'm an entrepreneur, investor, and advisor based in Asia for over 12 years. Join us every week to fast track your personal growth so you can meet the ever increasing demands of the company or companies you are passionately. Building time waits for no one.

Sean Weisbrot: So let's get started now. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me. I am, uh, I love, you know, mentoring startups and I know that that's something you love to do too. So that's what this conversation is about, just our experiences talking with startups and what we've learned from them, and whatever you wanna talk about in that regard. So, welcome to the show.

Nellie Akalp: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Sean Weisbrot: So before we get any deeper, why don't you tell everyone what it is you do right now and, uh, we'll take it from there.

Nellie Akalp: So right now I, I have a startup called Hire. It's a workforce management software for shift workers. We help shift managers, manage their shift workers, we help them with, uh, scheduling, staffing, payroll, et cetera.

Sean Weisbrot: Obviously, someone mentored you at some point in your life. Why don't we talk a little bit about that experience, your first mentorship?

Nellie Akalp: So the first time I was ever a mentee was actually during my first startup. I had signed up for an entrepreneurship like program in university, and uh, I tried, um. To start a startup, which failed.

Nellie Akalp: But it was really fun to start something that was bigger than myself and I wanted to experience that. And the mentor was very, very, very supportive. She helped me build a deck, like start learning how to pitch, working with potential clients and, and just picking up the phone and calling people and doing research, all of which I had never done before.

Nellie Akalp: I was definitely out of my comfort zone and she really pushed me. Through that and helped me kind of gather what I needed in order to move forward for, for my startup. I mean, I think that it doesn't really matter that that startup didn't go well. It's more about like the relationship that I had with her and what I learned and got out of it.

Nellie Akalp: So I think that I definitely took that experience and especially my relationship with her into my future, um, mentorship engagements, whether I was a mentee. Or a mentor.

Sean Weisbrot: I think something that's important to clarify, which I encountered talking with a potential guest for the show months ago, was the idea of mentorship, what I consider to be free. This person considered to be paid, so she called herself a mentor, but charged people, which I would consider. A consultant or an advisor. So the first person that mentored you, was she donating her time or were you paying her for it?

Nellie Akalp: She was 100% donating her time. It was a volunteer program. It was for like university students.

Nellie Akalp: It was a great program. There was no mention of payment. And also there's no mention of equity. I know we discussed a little bit about this, but equity is often exchanged for like advisorship and sometimes mentorship, and she never mentioned it.

Sean Weisbrot: So the first time I was mentored. Was a guy, and I've mentioned this multiple times before, but if people haven't heard those other episodes, they may not be aware.

Sean Weisbrot: I was running my first company in China and it was socially very successful financially. I went, broke this one. Israeli entrepreneur in Shenzhen in China, was a big fan of what I was doing. He could see from attending our events that I put a lot of energy and heart into what I was doing, and so he decided to become my mentor. He had a career. Beside his own company in consulting and advising people to the tune of, you know, tens of thousands of dollars a pop. And yet he chose to mentor me for free because he saw that I had tremendous value that I could provide to the world, but that I myself didn't understand that value yet.

Sean Weisbrot: And so he spent about six months with me meeting me several times a week and talking for hours at a time and just trying to help me understand. The value that I had created with my business and helping me to understand how I can connect people. So basically through the event company that I created, we had over 10,000 followers across China, and we had hundreds of people attending our events live.

Sean Weisbrot: And what I had built was a massive. Countrywide network of business owners and other ambitious executives who spoke English As a person who spoke Chinese, I had access to not only those people, but the people in their networks who couldn't speak English. And so what he taught me was how to understand what each of them needed, and obviously not every single person but to, to find the people that I was interested in communicating with.

Sean Weisbrot: Find the people that I wanted to know, become friends with them, get to understand what they needed, and then see who else in the network I had built could give them what they needed and find a way to insert value and a minor level of control over the process in order to ensure that I could extract some sort of financial value from the value that I was bringing the relationship between the two people and making sure the process went smoothly and.

Sean Weisbrot: It changed my life. What he taught me made me who I am right now. And if it weren't for him, I don't know where I'd be or what I would be, but it definitely wouldn't be this. And I am extremely grateful. Everything he taught me and he didn't need to do it.

Nellie Akalp: How did he approach you or how did you approach him? Like how was that engagement?

Sean Weisbrot: Started at all of my events. I will say hello to everybody. I'll get to know their names and all of that. I introduced myself to him at one of the events and also like the events were large, like honestly, we had 700 people attending. So I was kind of a, a minor celebrity in my city because of the size and scale of what we were doing and the fact that I was the founder alongside my girlfriend.

Sean Weisbrot: People knew me wherever I went. In like these large circles of people who could speak English. He happened to be one of those people that could see I was the founder and he wanted to introduce himself as well. So we kind of became friendly. I think also because he knew that I was Jewish. You know, there's not many Jews in China, so it's one of those small circle kind of things where, you know, it's nice to know people that are similar to you.

Sean Weisbrot: I don't remember exactly how. The idea of a mentorship came up, but it definitely started from him, um, because again, he saw me putting my energy into what I was doing and not really understanding how to extract financial value out of it. And so I guess he felt bad that I was doing such an amazing job, but struggling.

Nellie Akalp: If you could pinpoint a few things that were life changing that you still take with you today, what would they be?

Sean Weisbrot: When I started that company, I had recently been fired from a job. Because I had gotten into an accident that made it hard for me to work. Being fired was the catalyst for me to decide to start my own company because I was like, I'm never going to allow someone else to be in control of my financial future.

Sean Weisbrot: But I had spent several years before that learning about entrepreneurship and kind of moving towards that. Path, but the experience of the accident followed by being fired, made me go, you know what? Screw it. This is it. This is my opportunity. I have some money saved. I don't know what I'm gonna do, but like, let's just, let's see what happens.

Sean Weisbrot: And up until that time, I was used to selling my time for money. I was used to, if you're a teacher, you make. You know, $40 an hour if you are, you know, a consultant, like whatever it is you do. Like I was taught to sell my time for money like everybody else. One of the things that he taught me was, it's not about the time, it's about the effort and what you're bringing back.

Sean Weisbrot: So he said, in order to price yourself properly, don't think about how many hours you're going to do something. Think about how much money. Your effort is going to save them or make for them. So for example, if someone were to come to me and say, I don't know how to do X, I want you to teach me how to do it, not I want you to do it, I want you to teach me how to do it.

Sean Weisbrot: So this is naturally a, a consultancy. The average person might say, okay, well I'm gonna charge you, uh, I don't know, $2,000 to do it, or I'm gonna charge you a hundred dollars an hour, $200 an hour. But what he taught me to do was. Ask more questions and think about what are you gonna gain from this? What is your goal?

Sean Weisbrot: Do you, is this going to, you know, become a $10 million company based on my consultancy? Like, what is it? And use that information to say, well, because of my value, because of my knowledge, what I'm bringing to you is going to make you $10 million. With that in mind. I believe that my value is worth at least a hundred grand to you.

Sean Weisbrot: So if you want my help, it may take me three months or six months full time to help you do this. I don't, I don't know how long it's gonna take. I believe this is worth a hundred grand. If you say no, that's fine, no big deal, because honestly, I have other things going on, and those things may pay more, they may pay less.

Sean Weisbrot: But what matters is I like doing those things and me taking my time to help you do this thing is taking me away from doing the things that I really wanna do. So. If you want me to work with you, I'm happy to help. I'm happy to help you. I like you. I think this is interesting, but it's gonna cost you a hundred grand.

Sean Weisbrot: And then it's up to them to go, okay, or not. And if they say yes, they say yes. If they don't say yes, then okay, well maybe I can introduce you to someone that can do it. Maybe they'll charge you five grand or 10 grand and you know, maybe you'll get something. But like, it's not gonna be what I can give you.

Sean Weisbrot: And then like I'm gonna go to that other person and take a few grand from whatever their cut is, or I'll negotiate a deal for them. So there's. There's all sorts of ways of doing things, but it's more than just understanding the value. It's also the psychology behind the negotiation where you are essentially removing all of their barriers to saying yes by pre-selling them or pre-ex explaining to them all of the things that may make them wanna cut down your price.

Sean Weisbrot: So another thing was, um, a lot of people will do like line item invoices. Like, okay, well you want me to do this, this, this, and this. So it's gonna be this much for that, this much for that, this much for that. But instead you say, Hey, this is how much it costs. And that way it's impossible for them to cut down your price based on the deliverables because you're offering them a service and that's the service.

Sean Weisbrot: And if they try to remove one of your deliverables because they wanna save money, in fact they're hurting themselves because they're not getting your full value. He taught me so many of these little. Nuances. And I already had the psychology background, but I didn't put all of those things together. And I think the biggest piece was understanding the value you bring in a financial sense, and then putting together the negotiation piece of being like, I don't really need this thing.

Sean Weisbrot: I don't really want this thing. Like, this is your thing. I'm, I happy to help you, but like, it's not my thing. So like I don't really care if this happens or not. By removing yourself from the expectation of something happening. Or the need to make this money, then people are much more willing to work with you because you're like, wait, you're willing to walk away?

Sean Weisbrot: Like if someone's like, oh, but what if I give you 50 grand? No, I'm sorry, I don't, I don't need 50 grand. Like I don't even need the a hundred grand. But if you wanna work with me, my value is a hundred grand. In fact, I'm doing you a favor because if you were anybody else, I would charge you 200 grand. But because you're so-and-so's friend, I'm giving you a good deal.

Sean Weisbrot: And I'm, I'm giving it to you for half off.

Nellie Akalp: Something you said was interesting 'cause you made a few points about like what you got out of it. And I think in order to be a good mentee, you have to be able to absorb the knowledge and actually use it and, and kind of get to a point where you're not just like listening, listening, listening and not doing anything with it.

Nellie Akalp: You have to go absorb it and actually implement everything you've learned. And it sounds like because it's changed your life so much. You have actually been able to take what he's taught you and implement it in every business deal you've had since then? Absolutely. So like, I think as a mentor you need to find mentees who are able to implement the things that they find important that you are providing them.

Nellie Akalp: Without that, uh, it's kind of a useless partnership 'cause you're not really getting a lot out of it as a mentor. Like you want to help someone and if they're not taking your advice and doing anything with it or they're just like passively listening to what you're saying it. Doesn't really make a lot of sense.

Nellie Akalp: And so it kind of goes into like how you choose whether like that person's a good mentee or not. And if you want to, if you value your time, you're not just gonna choose anyone. You're going to say like, is this person willing to accept my feedback and take it and run with it, or will they just passively listen to what I have to say?

Nellie Akalp: 'cause they just feel like they wanna mentor and then they don't do anything with it. I think that was what came to my head when you were talking about your experience. It sounded like you really absorbed everything.

Sean Weisbrot: What I find with a lot of the people that I mentor, which is not that many, but when I do most of it, is also around financial literacy and understanding value and, and selling value.

Sean Weisbrot: Like in general, I look for people who, as you said, are hungry. They really want more out of life, but they don't know really how to do it. So, okay. I'll give you another example of a, of a mentee. I mentored a. 45-year-old woman from Mexico based in South Florida, who was a life coach. When I met her, she was struggling to pay her bills because she was selling her time for money as a life coach.

Sean Weisbrot: 40 bucks, 50 bucks an hour. I was in the US so we met face to face 'cause she was in my city. After six months of talking with her. Like several days a week, you know, for six months, like an hour at a time, two hours at a time. I taught her what I explained here, and she's now making 20, 30 grand a month.

Nellie Akalp: Oh, that's amazing.

Nellie Akalp: That's amazing. It's life changing for her.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. So she gets to message me like, oh, I'm doing this thing now. Like, this thing is so cool, like I wish you could be a part of it and. Uh, brunches with women, like helping to inspire other women to do better. So I love to mentor women because I feel like women don't get enough support, and I think being a business owner or an entrepreneur as a female is a hell of a lot harder than a man just because of the fact that you don't have a penis and it's ridiculous.

Sean Weisbrot: But I, I think it's what a lot of women experience. At least that's what I've been led to believe.

Nellie Akalp: No, I agree with that. I think it's very difficult. I mean, they get, in general, starting company is hard, but as a female, like I think the resources out there, um, not in terms of financial, but in terms of mentors, it's hard to find a female mentor.

Nellie Akalp: It's hard to find female leaders. Who you can take experiences from and kind of go with them. So you always have to find like the male equivalent. And sometimes like the relationship can become kind of awkward, so you don't get as much out of it as you would from like a female mentor. So that's been difficult a little bit. Um, in my experience in my other female friends. As well found that.

Sean Weisbrot: Why do you feel like it's awkward?

Nellie Akalp: I don't, I don't think the actual relationship is awkward. It can get awkward. So like, for example, one of my friends when she was a consultant at the firm that she was working, uh, one of the partners was her mentor.

Nellie Akalp: And when they did these mentoring sessions, they went out to dinner. And a lot of the times people just thought they were on a date, but they were just, you know, talking about the career. Uh, and it just became like that situation. And like other people. Assuming that they were on a date instead of just like a platonic relationship, it kind of seeped into their actual mentorship relationship.

Nellie Akalp: It became like an awkward thing where they then couldn't really go out to dinner as much because he felt guilty. 'cause he had like a wife and kids and he didn't want people thinking that they were on a date. And then it just became more of like call sessions and they just didn't get as much out of.

Nellie Akalp: The relationship. 'cause like in person you can really talk a lot of things through and over the phone. It's great, but it's just not the same. And also comparing that with like my male friends, like my male entrepreneur friends, they go out drinking with their mentors. They go to parties with their mentors, they meet women with their mentors.

Nellie Akalp: Like they just like have such a different relationship with their like friends and sometimes best friends with them. Imagine the difference. Like that mentor can like go that much further. In terms of helping him than my female, like mentorship relationship type friends.

Sean Weisbrot: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that happened for your friend.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm sure that wasn't very fun. What do you do the first time you meet a potential mentee?

Nellie Akalp: I like to understand why they're there, like why they wanna talk to me and why what they think they can get out of it. But also like I really wanna analyze whether we would have a relationship where they could take my advice.

Nellie Akalp: And implement it. And like you said, if they're not hungry, I'm not interested 'cause it's my time and my time is like, I don't have that much of it right now, like running a business. And I wanna know that they value it so much that they are actually going to change their behavior and like make changes in their lives based on our.

Nellie Akalp: Mentorship sessions, so I need to know if it's a good personality fit.

Sean Weisbrot: How do you assess their personality for fit?

Nellie Akalp: I personally am drawn to people who are self-starters, who have kind of researched everything and they wanted to seek out help. So they potentially got in contact with me a few times and like were really hungry to like.

Nellie Akalp: Just get started and go with it. And I know that they're also contacting other people 'cause they really are interested in like just moving ahead. I really like that in someone and usually those people like we work well together and so that's like a pretty good sign. That could be a good relationship.

Sean Weisbrot: Is there anything that you hope they ask you? In the first meeting that tells you whether or not you're gonna like them or not? Because obviously you are looking at something, but how do you know if they're looking at something?

Nellie Akalp: Yeah, I mean, I haven't thought about that. I mean, I think off the top of my head, an interesting question that two of my mentees asked that I thought was very insightful was they asked me about my failures.

Nellie Akalp: Um, they asked me about my failed companies. Rather than my success because you can learn so much from failures. And it just showed me that they were thinking about that and they wanted to see A, what I kind of got from that B, what they can get from my failures as well, and, and what maybe they can identify their kind of on this pattern as well and, uh, maybe could avoid some pitfalls.

Nellie Akalp: So I think that was very insightful and I, I always like, enjoy. Talking about failures. I think people talk about success way too much within a business. Like even a successful business, there are so many failures. So like, let's talk about that a little more, right? Let's learn from that. We're not only gonna look at the success story of Airbnb and say, this is what I'm gonna do.

Nellie Akalp: Let's look at like the hundreds of experiments they tried and didn't work.

Sean Weisbrot: Let's assume you meet them once. You like them, you wanna mentor them. What next?

Nellie Akalp: The mentees are, they're all a little different, like how much help they need, how much time I have, how much I feel like I can help them. Like there are certain people who I feel like maybe they have like a finance background, so I can't really help them there, but maybe I can help them with negotiation or hiring or like other aspects of their business where I feel like I have some strengths.

Nellie Akalp: Depending on what I can help them with, I'd like to set up a plan on like the frequency in which we, we meet and for how long, and like set that up for the next meeting because I feel like you kind of have to have the ball rolling and, and momentum in order to like create change in their lives or help them create change in their lives.

Nellie Akalp: So, um, how about yourself? Like what do you kind of a look for and b kind of work on in the first meeting?

Sean Weisbrot: Well, it's interesting that you were talking about having this kind of a schedule because that, I'm a pretty organized person, but I. With all of the people I've mentored, it's never been a, okay, let's meet at this time in this place, or let's, like, it's always just like, if you have a problem, just message me.

Sean Weisbrot: Sometimes they'll message me like once every month. So for example, like I was going for a walk, uh, in the city a few days ago, and I got a message from, uh, one of the guys in Spain, and I was like, I'm not gonna type, screw this. I'm on a walk. So I called him and I was like, all right, what's going on? He is like, oh, well.

Sean Weisbrot: I am having a problem, like finding new clients, and I was like, well, don't you have a community of 250 people on Telegram that are like early users? He's like, yeah. I go message each one of them privately and get on the phone with them and figure out how you can close them. He's like, well. Some of them like aren't my target.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm like, how do you know? He is like, well, maybe they're developers. I go, great, but maybe they can have a conversation with you and give you their boss and you can have a call with the boss and close the boss. I go, don't go looking for people to sell. When you have a treasure trove of people who are already trying your product, go sell them first.

Sean Weisbrot: You know, I spent like 10 minutes on the phone with him. I hadn't heard from him in like a month, but you know. He was like, Hey, I have this problem. Okay, well this is how you solve it.

Nellie Akalp: Yes, I think mentees should be contacting you when they have an issue, regardless of the schedule. But what I find to be advantageous when having a schedule is like, it kind of gives someone structure and goals in like a very chaotic type of work environment.

Nellie Akalp: Like entrepreneurship. Like, like, well, the school system, I mean, we've talked about a bit, it's a bit, uh, wonky, but, um, one thing it does provide is structure and. That type of structure might not work for everyone, but we have gotten used to kind of having deadlines, having goals, having like this timeline to work within.

Nellie Akalp: And so I think it does help somebody that is a bit more chaotic, like keep at it and achieve the goal within a reasonable timeline. And I think sometimes I've tried having like no schedule. They just call me whenever and then I find like when they call me, the progress is like next to nothing. Even if I initially thought they were hungry and self-motivated, like I just don't feel like.

Nellie Akalp: So progress has been as impressive as when we do set a timeline and, and a schedule for ourselves. I do encourage them to call me whenever they do have an issue. Regardless of the schedule,

Sean Weisbrot: I want to get back real fast to your question about, uh, how I look for people and what I talk with them about when I talk to someone I can see very quickly.

Sean Weisbrot: Is this someone who is capable of opening their mind to a point in which they can accept. All of the things that I'm gonna shove in their brain because I have so much knowledge. A lot of it is randomly useless, but collectively useful. When I meet people, I randomly spit out facts and things that I've learned because I just, that's who I am.

Sean Weisbrot: I love to teach people. So sometimes in these conversations I will spit out information and see how they react to it, whether they can accept it or whether it's like too strange. So, for example, I am vegan. I've been vegan for straight eight months, but for the last almost two years, I like started transitioning into it because it's really not easy to do, you know, from eating meat every day, all day long, to like having enough meat.

Sean Weisbrot: Your body just doesn't like the transition. So for example, if someone's like. Uh, why don't you eat meat? I was like, well, you know, if you think about it, our hunter gatherer ancestors actually didn't really eat that much meat. Like maybe they found and killed an animal once a month, and that meat lasted them two or three days, but the rest of the month, like they subsisted on nuts and seeds and berries and fruits and vegetables, whatever they could find.

Sean Weisbrot: So in essence, our bodies are not designed. To digest meat all day, every day. It just can't handle it. And they're like, but I was told that we need meat to survive. Like, what are you talking about when you challenge people's fundamental, socially ingrained beliefs and see how they react is a, I think a pretty good measure of their ability to be teachable.

Nellie Akalp: I mean, if somebody is just dismissive when they hear you kind of bring that up or like anything that challenges them, then that's not a good fit, I think. But, uh, if they're willing to take that information and just, even if they don't agree with it, or like they're, it's not part of their lifestyle, like they could still accept it and understand it and even take something out of it,

Sean Weisbrot: I have no problem with it challenging their beliefs so much as.

Sean Weisbrot: They go, this is something I've never heard before, but I'm curious. Go on. So the next part is what do I talk with them about? Usually I'll do this in the same call. I will ask them to tell me about their current situation, and I will listen and ask questions based on the things I've heard. Mostly clarifying questions.

Sean Weisbrot: Have you thought about this or have you experienced this? Or, and oftentimes I will actually hear them give me clues about something being a problem that they don't actually realize is the main problem that they're facing. So for example, uh, I had an intro call with, uh, CTO of. A company and the problem that they were talking about was like, we don't know how to charge for our product.

Sean Weisbrot: But the problem I heard was the CEO is ready to have a mental breakdown and he's falling apart and he's trying to leave the project. How do we get him back? I spent two hours talking to him, being like, look. Forget the product. Like this guy is your friend for 20 years, right? When was the last time you had a conversation with him about his mental health and not about the goddamn company?

Sean Weisbrot: He's like, I don't know, maybe two years ago. Well go give him a goddamn call. Get off with me and be his friend. Forget about the company, be his friend. Just go make him feel like you still care about the guy, right? Like he's got a full-time job and he is doing this startup. The guy's falling apart, he can't handle it.

Sean Weisbrot: After like a month, he, he never got back to me. So like I had to message him like a month later and be like, yo, what happened? Like I spent hours with you talking about your biggest problem, like what happened? And he's like, oh, well, you know, we talked and like things got a little bit better for a time.

Sean Weisbrot: But like, he still. Not really like fully into it. So I don't know, like our COO's just basically doing his job and I was like, okay, so basically nothing's changed. He's like, yeah, but like I tried, I talked to him and like I just, I don't know if it's gonna change.

Nellie Akalp: How did you feel about that when like your, your mentee didn't even like update you about?

Nellie Akalp: This big problem, like that would be very frustrating for me if I'm putting in so much time, so many hours talking to someone and they, they're not going to like care enough to let me know how it went and I wasn't happy about it. Of course. Yeah. So I mean, that brings me to my next question. Like I feel like in those situations, like you kind of have to make a decision whether it's even worth.

Nellie Akalp: The engagement at that point. Like if somebody's not willing to work hard for themselves, like why are you putting in more time and effort? Like it's so disheartening. I mean, I've had situations where like I found that they weren't as motivated. I thought they would be, but they weren't. And it was unfortunate, but I just kind of said like, listen, if you're not at the stage in your, in your life, you don't really wanna dedicate the time that you said you would.

Nellie Akalp: I don't feel like I can. Create as much value as I'd like to, and there are a lot of other people that want to work with me, and I just don't have the time. So I kind of cut it off. I don't know what you are thinking of doing or what you have done in the past.

Sean Weisbrot: I don't blame you for doing that. And they basically did that for me.

Sean Weisbrot: I already don't care anymore. I may go back and ask for another startup.

Nellie Akalp: Not all of them are gonna be great mentees. Right.