LeaderImpact Podcast
LeaderImpact Podcast
Ep. 87 - Brent & Celeste Trickett - The Art of Working Together: Navigating Marriage and Leadership
What happens when your spouse becomes your colleague? For Brent and Celeste Trickett, National Directors of Family Life Canada, navigating this complex dynamic has been both challenging and deeply rewarding. With refreshing honesty, they reveal how sharing an office in their home's front entrance while raising four children required them to develop practical strategies for success.
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Welcome to the Leader Impact Podcast. We are a community of leaders with a network in over 350 cities around the world dedicated to optimizing our personal, professional and spiritual lives to have impact. This show is where we have a chance to listen and engage with leaders who are living this out. We love talking with leaders, so if you have any questions, comments or suggestions to make the show even better, please let us out. We love talking with leaders, so if you have any questions, comments or suggestions to make the show even better, please let us know. The best way to stay connected in Canada is through our newsletter at leaderimpactca or on social at Leader Impact. And if you're listening from outside of Canada, check out our website at leaderimpactcom.
Speaker 2:I'm your host, lisa Peters, and our guests today are Brent and Celeste Trickett. Brent and Celeste live in Saskatoon, saskatchewan, with their four children, and they have a revolving door of other friends who live with them from time to time. They've been married since 2000 and are now the National Directors of Family Life Canada. Their passion is to help others experience the joy of bringing help and hope to the marriages and families in their communities. Welcome to the show, brent and Celeste.
Speaker 2:Hi, lisa, nice to see you it is nice to see you guys again. Um, I love the family life conferences. Each year, my husband and I have attended two. You have both been there and, um, we love them. It's just a wonderful retreat.
Speaker 1:So well, let's hear that.
Speaker 2:Appreciate it and I think sometimes people think we need and I I should ask you first about family life and then I'll you know, I'll give you my experience. But for people who don't are listening in for the first time and don't know family life, tell us about family life and why the need to strengthen marriages in family is so important.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, family life in well, family Life Canada. You know our desire is to bring help and hope to every marriage and family in Canada by developing networks of partnering churches and home builders, which are our volunteers. So we want to not just give great resources and great conferences, like you said, but we actually want to equip other people to be able to reach into their neighborhood and know how to pray for their neighbors, for their kids, for their families and, as we see families strengthened. I think that'll change the country, it'll change the world, and Family Life is actually in and I should know this. I was just in some meetings last week lots of countries around the world, just like Leader Impact. So we're a sister organization to Leader Impact. We're all under the Power to Change umbrella here in Canada, so we're glad to be here.
Speaker 2:It is nice to have you and I think we all know that when your home life isn't happy, you're taking that to work. So, yeah, I really appreciate it. And one thing about what we felt is my husband and I have been married 23 years, coming up 24. And we have a great marriage. That's why we keep coming, because we want to keep it great. So I think there's many different types that come to a marriage retreat. We come because we love it and think we need to be great in 20 years.
Speaker 1:So how do we You're so right, because one of the things like the challenges for us, even at our conferences, is how do we address all of those couples who are at different places? Because, like you, a lot of people they are in a good spot, they want to invest more, and then some people are in a really hard spot and then you've got everything in between.
Speaker 3:but we really try to give people tools that will help just any couple, any couple, no matter where they are at yeah, yeah, if this relationship is so important like even for those of us that have employees or we're always trying to develop them, help them get better, do different things and learn all kinds of things, and so our most important relationship sometimes we forget about and we just don't invest in them and it's kind of like a vehicle you want to keep on top of it so that you don't have to do the big maintenance things later on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So if anyone wants to call me for a personal experience, I will tell you all about Family Life's conferences. So in our podcast we're going to change a bit of the direction because we really want to talk about you two working together. You are now the national directors together of Family Life, and so I want to focus a little bit on working together, as I'm sure many people listening have partners who work together and I'm sure there are struggles. So I wanted I was if you'd answer the question, what was a pivotal point in your working relationship? You know, wherever you were in a journey, what made it better? It was, you know, conversation, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I feel like we've had a few of those points. You know, even, maybe we first noticed it when we started having kids, because we worked together in a different way Right. But then also when we started having kids because we worked together in a different way, right. But then, um, also when we started presenting at conferences together, because we have such a different style of presenting and also preparing. So that was a real challenge. I think we've gotten better at it yeah, we were both individually.
Speaker 3:we worked in uh with students for 15 years in student ministry and we've both spoken a lot, we presented a lot and I think we were both pretty good at it. But learning to do that together as a couple, wow, nothing's been more difficult just because we're different people and we're trying to mesh two different styles together. So, oddly enough, when we came to Family Life to help people work better together at home, that was our hardest time of working together in our home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was like a hard point in our marriage. We gotta figure out how to do this, Brett.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think everyone looks at you and they think perfect marriage, because you stand up there and you do very well together. You know you feed off each other. It's very, it looks very, natural. But to get to that point of but even working at home, how are you? How are you in your workspaces? Or maybe one of you is traveling more, but how's that working at home Is? Was there a moment where you're like go downstairs? I don't know.
Speaker 1:I do sort of have this signal to Brent, actually, because he's an external processor, I'm an internal processor and also when I work I'm focused, and so for Brent, like if he's working on something, I can ask him 20 questions, and I think he almost like likes the intrusion, whereas for me, if I'm trying to focus, I'm just like like please don't look at me, don't ask me any questions, and so what I've started doing is I'll actually put headphones over my ears. I'll warn Brent first. I'm like Brent, I got to go to my space Anything you want to ask me right now, and then, when I put on those headphones, it's almost like a signal, like please just wait to ask me any questions, and you know he's so good about it.
Speaker 3:And it's nicer than what she says to the kids, because the kids, kids. She says you know what? I'm gonna take a vacation in my mind right now, so no more questions. So now we just have a physical signal headphones on.
Speaker 2:No more questions yeah, so I wonder if that's common, because my husband is exactly the same way he puts on his headphones. It's like I'm done, I'm gonna work now and I'm like oh, I just want to talk about everything and listen.
Speaker 1:We don't mean to be disrespectful you know, don't mean to ignore our spouses, but it's just the process. That's just the difference. I'm not wrong, brent's not wrong, but those are those differences. We just got to figure out how to navigate.
Speaker 2:And be open about it. Communicate that this is what I need. I think is definitely something I'm hearing.
Speaker 1:And we actually do share an office space. It's actually in the front entrance of our home, so this is my desk where we're sitting right now, and just to our right is Brent's space right there, so we are really in it together.
Speaker 2:Wow, my husband and I are on different floors at times.
Speaker 1:Probably smart.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you for sharing. We usually, on our podcast, talk about our best principle of success, so wonder if you have a best principle of success of working together.
Speaker 1:You want to go first?
Speaker 3:Well, the first one is just be kind. I think I mean, this is working with anybody. We all have bad days, and you know, and just try to think the best of people and just ask better questions, ask more questions, see what's really going on. And I find working together, especially as a couple and we find this a lot, as we're working with couples like they are maybe looking for some help in their relationship, especially business people. So would you ever talk to a client like that? Like no, never, like okay. Well, this is your closest relationship. Let's try to be kind, back it up, treat each other with the same respect that we would with anybody else, and so I think the first one is just be kind.
Speaker 1:Yeah, would with anybody else. And so I think the first one is just be kind, yeah. And then I think, getting back to those differences, we need to figure out how to work with the differences and in a lot of ways the differences can be strengths. So even just one little example like Brent, when he's going to make a decision, he likes to sort of do some research and think through all of the different options before making a decision, whereas me I'm like I'm not really worried actually about making the best decision. I just want a decision and I want it quickly, and so I can frustrate him, he can frustrate me, but we instead try to work with that difference. We don't try to change each other, and we've actually found, if we do this process where Brent has time first to do all the research and then we make the decision, we tend to make a lot better decisions.
Speaker 3:Yeah, then we've. We've, like we actually have the same role as directors of this organization, so, but we've had to figure out. What do we each do?
Speaker 2:So do well.
Speaker 3:So I well even. Just what do we do? So I tend to do the more external from the organization stuff. I love meetings, I love discussing, Celeste loves writing and she loves that kind of thing stuff she does alone, and so we've kind of worked out some of the roles where, like with our staff and our staff meetings, Celeste takes that If it's external to our larger organization. Or I was just in some meetings last week in Orlando which energized me, and Celeste gets tired even just thinking about traveling, going to places. So we're trying to figure out what do we do best and how do we help each other do the things that maybe they don't like to do and support each other in the things where we're really good at.
Speaker 2:When do you shut it off? Do you have office hours in your house, cause you're working side by side? Do you have office hours? Do you shut it off? Does the office close?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we're not like super, you know, after this time don't ask me any questions about work. But I think we more recognize that we do just need to stop talking and about work sometimes and for me I probably hit that limit sooner than Brent, and so sometimes I might just have to ask Brent like okay, no more, no more work talk, let's just take a breather. But actually it doesn't even happen that much. I think we're pretty consistent about our work hours during the day. In the evening maybe we have a few work conversations.
Speaker 3:Weekends we're usually if we're not at a conference I would say we've learned so celeste's ability to go to sleep instantaneously. So for her she would often bring up a problem. Like you know, we go to bed and she'd just say, hey, we really need to fix this, and then she'd go to sleep and I'd be up for the next three hours like okay, and and so it's not good, lisa, it's not good at all, so we uh, kind of had this rule like no more work after 8 pm, like that's kind of our general time, just like you know what.
Speaker 3:Let's just like not talk about anything for a while, and so we try to stick to that pretty well that's pretty good and, like you said, it takes.
Speaker 2:It takes practice, it takes time. You know, talking about it and laughing about it I do love. Just you know we are harder on the ones we love, they'll forgive us. But when you work all day and then you're together all night and all weekend, yeah, there's that, those respects and the boundaries. So thank you for sharing. We also talk a lot about our failures and our mistakes, because I think we all know we learn more darn from them. So I'm wondering if you're willing to share a failure or mistake and what you've learned from it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the thing that sticks out to me the most is actually when our kids were young. We had three little ones, so six, four and two, and then, you know, a baby on the way, and at that point, brent and his work was traveling about 10 days a month and I sort of had this wrong idea, I think, of what it meant to support him in his work as a wife. Like I really felt like man God's calling him to do all these amazing things. I just need to release him to do all these great things God is calling him to. So I'm going to hold things down at home and yeah, so I tried to do that, but it's hard, right, and I got to a point where I just had to say to Brent, like this isn't working, I couldn't do it and it actually wasn't great for our relationship. It wasn't great for your relationship with kids either.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I was gone, I was missing out on a lot and you know for me, I was thinking like, well, I'm providing for my family, like these are all good things. You know, I'm working for God, providing for my family, these are all good things. But we can't do those things at the expense of our family. So we actually had to just sit down and say, okay, this isn't working. And some of it was fun for me and I think we all tend to go where we feel appreciated. So sometimes for some people, the kids give you that appreciation. For some people it's work, and so you gravitate towards those things. But when they start pushing out your family, that's when it's not good. So we were able to sit down and talk and actually change my role to something where I was able to be around more, and that's actually how we ended up with Family Life about 11 years ago. And so because we wanted to work more together and be, around a little bit more.
Speaker 1:Wow. I do have to say, though, like it was hard for me to admit it to myself that it wasn't working, and then it was hard to admit it to Brent, but when I did he was, yeah, very quick to. We knew things needed to change and he was very quick to make adjustments. So super thankful for that, yeah.
Speaker 2:What were you feeling, celeste, when you knew you needed to talk to Brent to make the change, because you said it was hard, for you Was?
Speaker 1:it. What were you feeling? Do you remember I don't know if part of it was maybe not wanting to disappoint him, or I had these expectations of myself actually that if we were doing God's will, I should be able to do it In the power of his spirit. I should have the strength to do all of this. So I think maybe part of what I felt was just like I should be able to do this, but I can't, and I think my thinking was flawed.
Speaker 2:And so actually too.
Speaker 1:One of the things I do really appreciate about Brent whenever I do ask him for his perspective, open up about these kinds of things is hearing his perspective just helps me to be a lot more like centered and balanced and in the truth, instead of kind of getting down these rabbit trails of my own thinking that are unhealthy and and not helpful yeah, and Brent, to you, when you when you were with the other job, it sounds you left that and you came to family life.
Speaker 2:In that moment where you were making that change, this was, this was for your family. Was it a? Was it going back to that moment when you're in it? Was that a good thing? Do you remember? Was it like this is this is a hard decision, or was it?
Speaker 3:You know the other role I kind of grown into over 15 years, and when you're really good at something, you know what you're doing, you're you're wanted, you're kind of climbing the ladder like everything, where you thought starting out was starting to happen and actually it was, like you know, as far as the ladder goes, pretty, pretty high on that ladder. But then it's just like but what now? Right, like if I, if my family's not doing well and I'm not doing well, then like what's the use? Right, and so a term that I like a lot is successful failures. Like often we can have all the success in the world, but really if we're doing it at the expense, you know, of our family, of ourselves, even like our own mental health, our own physical health, then we're really just successful failures.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for answering those questions. I think people listening it's hard to make change and it's on both like from Brent's side and either way, if one had a more successful job and it's taking away from your family and not wanting to talk about it, not wanting to, you know, feel disappointed that you're not doing your job. So I just thank you for sharing that, those answers. I appreciate that we want to talk a little about your faith legacy and not that we want to talk about when you leave this world. But when you leave this world and you've been on an amazing journey, what do you want your faith legacy to be when you leave?
Speaker 1:Well, we're really, really passionate about seeing God change people's lives. You know, we love it when we see people make that connection with him, when they start a relationship with him, or if it's learning to surrender more to him. We love that we. We. We want that most in our home. To be quite honest, like we, we just love our kids so much. We would just love for our legacy to be that they would have a relationship with God where they enjoy walking with him, they understand what it means to surrender to him, they understand the purpose that he brings, the joy and the peace that he brings, and they're able to help others know him.
Speaker 1:So, like, no pressure kids no pressure, but but that's one of the things that we pray for the most that our kids would know and love and walk with Jesus.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Beyond that, I think of 3 John 1, 4,. I have no greater joy than to hear my children are walking in the truth, and so that's kind of like you know what guides us. But I think, like the faith legacy I want to leave, I think of I just met somebody last week, that who is really influential in the men who are really influential in my life, and so he's and, uh, so these men for 25 years have been building into me, and this person before that, like he's in his 80s, still in ministry. I thought man like this is this is where I want to be when I get older. And then I think through. Not many people know who Henrietta Mears is. Do you know Henrietta Mears?
Speaker 2:No, I don't. That's what I want.
Speaker 3:So many people. Henrietta Mears, Dr Henrietta Mears she ran the college and career group at Hollywood Presbyterian Church in Hollywood church in Hollywood and she had a direct influence on Bill Bright who started Campus Crusade, Dawson Trotman who started the Navigators, Billy Graham Sunlight Curriculum For anybody that's been in Sunday school with good curriculum. She started that movement, Christian Camping, she started that movement, and so you just think of this woman of faith. Nobody knows, Nobody knows who she is, but she's had millions and millions of people who of faith. Nobody knows, Nobody knows who she is, but she's had millions and millions of people who have been affected by her and I think that's the legacy. I don't know some of the people that we've had an impact on. I don't know where they'll go. Some of them are doing greater things than me already and that's fantastic. Nobody needs to know who I am, but I just want to leave that faith imprint on the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I didn't know Henrietta, but I knew many of the names you listed after that, the people that we influence, and I'm sure you're influencing, because in your bio I read about the revolving door of other friends who live there from time to time.
Speaker 1:Most recently it was, I think, on a Saturday. We got a text from a friend and on Sunday he moved in.
Speaker 2:See, you're just an influence everywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, we added it up a few, like a month ago or something. How many people?
Speaker 1:I don't know, like 30 people.
Speaker 2:Like 30-something students have lived here, over the years, wow, yeah, and now you have four children. Are they all still at home?
Speaker 1:They are. We have two in university, two in high school. Wow, it's fun and full.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it. And when we started this podcast, you said there are messages everywhere for everyone in this house to be quiet if they come in.
Speaker 3:So far, so good. Only ones come in. Saw the silent sign and sculk around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've had the same messages for my kids, so I love it. Our last question for both of you is what brings you the greatest joy?
Speaker 1:I think again, just like the last question just seeing people's lives changed, and really I believe that. So even in the marriage ministry that we do. We think it is really important to give people tools to for better communication, for better relationships, to give them some hope, to give them a picture of what the future can look like, Like that's really, really important and we really are serious about investing in marriages and families. But ultimately, too, we know that Jesus is the one who brings the real change, the lasting, eternal change, and so our greatest joy is to see people have that relationship with him, grow in it, share it with other people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and I think too, like, yeah, so not just having this, like we have this incredible opportunity to to help change lives. I used to be with students, now it's with marriages and families, and and so with every marriage and every family that's, that's a legacy that gets, like you think, about three, four generations down. If somebody meets Jesus, that changes their life. But then to watch those people, I just love seeing people learn how to share their faith, learn how to tell others about what's going on, and that they can see that they can actually have an impact on the world. That's what really brings me joy, yeah.
Speaker 2:I know being at the Family Life Conference and there's at one point, celeste, we break off as women and the men break off and we have these conversations and there have been women who have shared their stories with you and then maybe with their. Obviously with their consent, you share them with us and that's those are some great moments for us. So I can't imagine how you feel when people share those stories with you. You were the reason they changed or you know, and to you, brent, men share stories with you. They change because of something you said or a story. So I, when I, when I hear that it brings back those moments of that conference where people share their stories and and life-changing.
Speaker 1:So yeah Well that's the amazing thing too God is at work. Sometimes we just forget, but it is such an honor to hear those stories because it is a great reminder. God is absolutely at work and even working miracles. And there are people who think that they're done, but in their marriage, but they, you know, they come and they have conversations, they get a little bit closer, they make decisions to stay together and we've yeah, we have seen some of those couples and they do stay together and their marriage gets better. Even couples who they'll come when they're in a really hard place and we meet them a few years later and they're back and they're like, wow, this was so exciting because we're in such a great place right now. Yeah, god is at work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, it's such a great conference, such a great conference. I want to thank you both for joining us today. I come here every. I mean, I do these podcasts because I'm still learning. I think we all are still learning. So just taking your time to share with us today, I appreciate you. So thank you for sharing, thanks.
Speaker 1:Lisa.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having us now if anyone wants to connect with you, um, either through family, maybe through family life. What's the best place to connect? Well, our website familylifecanadacom. You can always get a hold of us there. There's great resources for all kinds of things family, marriage, um whatever you want. That's probably the best way that you can do. Uh, instagram, yeah, any of the things you can get all of us on.
Speaker 1:We also have really easy email addresses too, so I'm just Celeste at FamilyLifeCanadacom, brent is Brent at FamilyLifeCanadacom. So even if you just remember our names, you can get a hold of us FamilyLifeCanadacom Easy enough, all right.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you again for joining us. Thank you, lisa. All right, well, if you're part of Leader Impact, you can always discuss or share this podcast with your group. And if you're not yet part of Leader Impact and would like to find out more and grow your leadership, find our podcast page on our website at leaderimpactca and check out our free leadership assessment. You can also check out groups available in Canada at leaderimpactca or, if you're listening from anywhere else in the world, check out leader impactcom or get in touch with us by email info at leader impactca and we will connect you. And if you like this podcast, please leave us a comment, give us a rating or review. This will help other global leaders find our podcast. Thank you for engaging with us and remember impact starts with you.
