Have you ever looked at your partner and thought, “How are they so calm right now?” Meanwhile, you’re over here ready to climb the walls because of a messy toddler or a business hiccup. It’s wild how we all have different stress triggers, isn’t it?

In this Babies and Business Podcast episode, Avram and Rachel dive into oh-so-relatable differences in how couples handle stress. They’ll share some real-life stories—from toddler chaos to business mishaps—and how these moments can actually strengthen your bond. Whether you’re the calm one or the one stressing out over everything, there’s something here for you to laugh about and relate to.

Show Notes

Key Highlights from this Episode:

• Avram and Rachel share how their different stress triggers help create balance in their personal and professional lives.
• They discuss everyday challenges, like managing messes, unexpected hiccups, and parenting chaos.
• Their reactions to stressful situations—whether it’s mishaps, problem-solving, or unexpected expenses—highlight how differences can complement each other.
• They reflect on the importance of outsourcing tasks
• Each other’s differences in handling stress strengthen their relationship and teamwork, both at home and in business.
• Delegating responsibilities, whether at work or in daily life, can save time and energy while reducing unnecessary tension.
• They highlight the value of finding humor in stressful moments and embracing challenges as opportunities for growth.

Mentions & Resources:

ScaleSquad – A trusted website management partner that helps businesses reduce stress by managing technical website tasks.

Orange Theory – A fitness center offering structured workouts and challenges, including benchmarks like rowing and running for distance.

Daniel Tiger – A beloved children’s show that encourages learning and emotional growth for toddlers.

Blaze and the Monster Machines – An animated series focused on adventure and problem-solving, loved by young kids.

B2B Expo Albuquerque – An upcoming event at the Albuquerque Convention Center on January 15th, featuring networking, fun activities, and prizes.

[tcb-script src=”https://play.pod.co/embed/frame-v1.js”][/tcb-script]

Episode Transcription

Avram Gonzales: What stresses you out, mama? What is it today?

Rachel Gonzales: Lot of different things from you.

Avram Gonzales: That’s true. We were laughing the other day. I think it was, well, we’ll talk about it. I think it was a mess inspired by a toddler, how obviously I was coming unglued while you were just super chill about it. Like, you know, what would be fun? Let’s talk about what stresses you out versus what stresses me out.

Rachel Gonzales: Yes. And I’m very excited to talk about this because it’s really comical. The difference between you and me. And, differences don’t make it bad. It’s just different. So, very excited to talk about the differences.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah. And for you listening, we’d love to hear from you over at the blog, babiesandbiz.com/63. It’s the number of this episode.

Rachel Gonzales: Ooh, you, you actually looked it up.

Avram Gonzales: it up before we started. Gettin better at it. And, uh, you can let us know how you and your partner are different in this. Uh, just because I think everybody can relate.

There are things that drive you up the wall that your partner doesn’t care about.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah.

Avram Gonzales: And that also might kind of drive you up the wall.

Rachel Gonzales: Yes.

Avram Gonzales: So let’s talk about it. We’ve got a bunch of different things spanning personal, home, business, finances, hobbies, all kinds of stuff today. Let’s jump into it.

Rachel Gonzales: So let’s just tell a story about this first one. So it was like yesterday, this weekend. And, uh, there was a time when I was in, you know, it doesn’t even matter where I was in the house. Seems to be that Lincoln will open something up and start taking everything out. So what happened is we were in our master bathroom and there’s a linen closet there.

Lincoln just. Recently. discovered it. Maybe for the first time. He gets in there, and he closes himself in, and then he opens up the door, and he throws out a washcloth. And then he closes the door, and he, and on and on and on, until we have this pile of clean laundry that was folded and put away on the floor.

I found it to be very funny, and I’m just gonna pick it up and toss it back in. I’m not even gonna bother folding it. So, so, I asked Avram. Avram, come in here, and don’t do anything about it, and don’t say anything. Just look. So he, I kind of did it because I wanted to see his reaction. It had nothing to do with anything else.

So he comes in and immediately he gave me the reaction that I wanted from him

Avram Gonzales: Yeah, what What was the reaction

Rachel Gonzales: do toddler messes stress you out, Avram?

Avram Gonzales: Totally. I mean, he’s unloading, you know, uh, like the one drawer where you don’t have a lock on. All the pens out of it. I’m like, oh my, just, just stop

Filler: And he just learned how to take caps off of markers. So,

Avram Gonzales: So, toddler messes, I mean, the other thing is too, like, all these fun projects and activities, you know, if there’s paint involved, ugh, I, ugh, it just drives me nuts when the paint is like, on the table

Rachel Gonzales: or, or, I had, you know, we had some Cheerios and I was like, you know, I don’t really want you eating Cheerios anymore. So I’m going to grind them up into dust and you can use sand in the house. Yay. So Avram comes home one day and there is dust everywhere

Avram Gonzales: getting, and it’s getting tracked everywhere

Rachel Gonzales: Well, right, it’s getting tracked everywhere, but he’s also slipping on it because it’s on the floor.

So he steps on it and he’s down on the floor. So,

Avram Gonzales: The baby, not me.

Rachel Gonzales: yes, exactly.

Avram Gonzales: I’d be a real problem if it was me.

Rachel Gonzales: I know there are times that I have to prep him for when he comes into the house because I’ve let Lincoln go wild with all these different things. So there are messes and I’ll tell him, Okay, I don’t expect you to clean this up. There is a mess here and here. Just leave it alone and go do this instead.

So I will suggest an activity for Avram to come home and do while I’m busy with the other thing. It
could be holding Lincoln or August or sitting down with a show, whatever that thing is. But it is not dealing with the mess because

Avram Gonzales: Listen, you stop, you stop. Let’s not talk about the couch that we literally threw away, because he covered it in your makeup.

Rachel Gonzales: Oh, we won’t talk about that

Avram Gonzales: Right, so next topic. Now that we know that it totally stresses me out, and it doesn’t stress Rachel out, toddler messes, let’s talk about damaging the vehicle. So the other day I went to lunch with my mom, and I’m turning into this restaurant, and I’m trying not to hit the other car that’s waiting, you know, to turn out.

So I cut the corner a bit hard, and what do I do? I scrape the entire, like, bottom panel of the door on the right hand side up this tall curb. I scrape the shit out of that thing, and I’m like, you know what? That’s like, that’s over a thou I mean, I know it’s gotta be a thousand bucks of damage, maybe more, like, maybe two, and it’s like, it just seems like it shouldn’t be, but you know it’s gonna be.

Right? And like, ahhh. Well, I’m gonna have a good lunch with my mom. And I did. And I came home and I was like, so, I messed it up. We can always make more money. Like, that was it, and then,

Rachel Gonzales: Well, I’m grateful that you, that it happened to you because at that point in my journey, postpartum and how I was feeling, um, even just a week ago prior to getting more sleep, uh, it’s just the one thing that tips me over the edge. And that would have absolutely sent me reeling.

Because I would have made a mistake and I would have been beating myself up about it. Whether you would have had a problem with it or not. And you could have said the very same thing. We can always make more money. To me, had it been me, I would have been devastated. So did it bother me? It would have, if it was me doing the damage, but since you did it, it was like, at least there’s that.

Avram Gonzales: At least there’s that. Uh, what about playing a new board game, Rachel?

Rachel Gonzales: That’s really stressful for me.

Avram Gonzales: Why?

Rachel Gonzales: Well, because I grew up with, uh, you know, if a game was making us make noise and mom didn’t like it, she would throw it away. So I have a lot of trauma around that. I mean, that’s one of the things, but also it’s like, I want to be good at the board game. And because I didn’t grow up going to school and because I felt dumb and because I felt uneducated and, um, the way I functioned in life was looking at other people and following their, what they did in a certain social circumstance or situation. In board games it’s hard for me to do that because all I would have is do what the other person is doing, but it’s not always the same

Avram Gonzales: Well, don’t even know the rules yet

Rachel Gonzales: Exactly. I don’t know the rules. I don’t know how to not look stupid in my eyes. Um, when I come against something that’s brand new. So that’s, it’s a huge thing for me, but I like playing board games with you for the very first time, because I know there’s no judgment and you know how I feel

Avram Gonzales: Yeah, true.

Rachel Gonzales: Lots of baggage for me,

Avram Gonzales: True. Like this whole other layer that most people don’t have to contend with. Right. So it stresses you out for me. I love learning something new. I love learning the rules of something because then I can figure out all the ways around them through them to take advantage of them.

Rachel Gonzales: but you also have just a really chill approach to new board games. It’s like, Oh, the first time through. Yeah. I’m, I’m probably not going to win, but the next time I will.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah. Well, and shout out to your brother Walker. I mean, I kind of picked that up from him too. We’ve been playing games now for about three years, four years now here and there. And, uh, that’s how he approaches it. And I’m like, you know what? I should take it a little bit less seriously the first few times too.

Rachel Gonzales: And Walker’s like, we play it once and he’s like, let’s go again.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah. Which I like.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah. Okay. Next one. Uh, there is a website issue.

Rachel Gonzales: Oh boy, that’s stressful for me. Absolutely. For you.

Avram Gonzales: You know what? Also stressful. Even though I know how to do most of the things, whenever there’s something that comes up that especially takes me out of something I’m already doing to fix a problem. Really makes me grumpy. It can, it can really, it can ruin my entire day. Um, and I think that’s pretty much all it needs to be said about that.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah. You know, we, the awesome thing though, is that, you know, we have, um, in our business, we help people get found online. We don’t, we have to deal with website stuff, but we don’t actually do the awesome things with website stuff. So it’s just, it’s an obstacle that we have had to find a solution for.

Avram Gonzales: Well, and so what happened was, you know, the other day is like one of three sites that we still maintain personally had an issue plus our own website, same day. And it was that moment where like, look, this is stupid. So I spent like an hour and a half, two hours that morning fixing all the problems.

Totally different than what I was supposed to be doing that day. Huge waste of time. So what did we do? We said, you know what? We need to move every last one of our clients and our own projects to our partners at ScaleSquad. Shout out to Wade and Brad, the rest of the team over at ScaleSquad. They are our white label partners that manage all of our client websites and now officially all of our client websites.

Rachel Gonzales: Cause they just make it so easy. They do a great work job and they take away all of that stress. Had we had that same problem with that same client and our website and we had it under management over at ScaleSquad, what would the solution have looked like?

Avram Gonzales: We would have submitted a ticket, and it would have been fixed that day,

Rachel Gonzales: Correct.

Avram Gonzales: and we wouldn’t have had to do anything else after

Rachel Gonzales: So it would have taken probably 10 15 minutes of your time,

Avram Gonzales: At most.

Rachel Gonzales: instead of hours and the rest of your day being wiped, for productivity.

Avram Gonzales: Correct. So,

Rachel Gonzales: So, yes, websites are stressful, now they’re not.

Avram Gonzales: Now they’re not. Client reporting. Well, for me, that’s stressful, and I think that’s a combination of different things, but primarily what comes up for me is, I am so critical of how we are performing for our clients

Rachel Gonzales: and not just that, I think you also get into the weeds. You, you can’t just, come up with the numbers and the reporting for the actual reporting for the clients, you see XYZ in their dashboards and you’re like, Oh I gotta go and find more

Avram Gonzales: And then I go,

Rachel Gonzales: then you just go deep instead of me, I come in and I look at it as a problem to be solved because there are some clients that we have multiple channels, like we have SEO, LSA ads, and Google ads, and we got to get like the full amount for each lead, you know, the cost per lead.

And I created a spreadsheet. It makes my job really easy. And you, it was just really stressful and it was a lot. So, I came in and created a system, made it easy, and instead of having that frustration for you around reporting, we just transf
erred it to a productive time. You get to do SEO stuff. You have a specific, a lot of time to go in, look at the campaigns, and rework stuff if it needs to be reworked.

Avram Gonzales: because that’s what de stresses me,

Rachel Gonzales: Absolutely. When you can go in, exactly, and look at the strategy. So, here we go. It is stressful for you for client reporting and it’s not for me, so I do the client reporting now. And you know, Orange Theory benchmarks. We go to Orange Theory for where we work out and we get fit. Is it stressful for you, Avram?

Avram Gonzales: Well, a benchmark, by the way, is there’s, there’s several, like, rowing or running challenges, different

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah, it’s like a 12 minute mile or

Avram Gonzales: 12 minute run for distance. Like, and these other challenges that they’ll track on your app year over year every time you do them.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah. You can see historically

Avram Gonzales: So you see how, you can see how you do.

For me, that’s not stressful.

Rachel Gonzales: still a big deal for you. And for me, I’m like, I’ve never done this.

Avram Gonzales: Well, does it,

Rachel Gonzales: I don’t know how. And then what you do is you say, okay, Rachel, you’ve got this benchmark tomorrow. And if you do this, then you’ll make that bench. You’ll do this time.

Avram Gonzales: I’ll figure out the strategy for her to follow

Rachel Gonzales: So I come in, if it’s like that 12 minute run for distance, you say, Okay, so you could set it at 5 and you could make this amount of whatever.

I think it was like a mile that I would do

Avram Gonzales: I like look at her data from some of her past runs and be like, okay Yeah, you could totally do this just set it at this and go and

Rachel Gonzales: Exactly. And you just helped me get a little bit better than last time. It’s not like I need to go for broke in those benchmarks, but yeah, it stresses me out.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah, I mean if you look at my heart rate monitor right before we begin those challenges it’s way up and I think that’s just like the positive stress and excitement, but not the oh my god, what’s going on?

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah.

Avram Gonzales: What about overspending

Rachel Gonzales: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That’s stressful.

Avram Gonzales: business and personal?

Rachel Gonzales: Oh, yeah. I’m in charge of all that stuff.

Avram Gonzales: What does that look like?

Rachel Gonzales: well, I mean,

Avram Gonzales: mentioned this to me and

Rachel Gonzales: be as simple as, it could be as simple as we have three softwares that do the very same thing in our business. Or it could be we have subscriptions at home that do the same thing or we don’t use or it could be, you know, I think we have something like we paid for an HVAC company to, uh, do like a, uh, spring, fall maintenance and we haven’t done the fall maintenance.

You know, that’s something we spent on, but we haven’t actually gotten it done. That kind of stuff. It’s that kind of stuff that stresses me out.

Avram Gonzales: So the reason that I put it on our list for today was because Rachel mentioned something like that she thinks about it and if she suspects that there is or like that is stressful to her in itself

Rachel Gonzales: Right. I’ve not, I don’t actually know. And it’s the not knowing.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah. So that’s, that’s funny.

Rachel Gonzales: So for our, on our personal side, though, I have a budget. I have an actual spreadsheet of consistent expenditures that we make every single month. And that’s a certain line item. That’s a certain amount. So I have all of them listed out. It could be our internet, our phone or all those different things.

And then there are other envelopes that we fill to make sure that we are maintaining everything. It could be like the health fund for our family, like all those different expenses for, uh, Going to the chiropractor or whatever that might be, um, but I keep them at a certain level because I do all of the transfers from our business bank accounts to our business to our personal bank accounts. So I keep line item stuff and the fact that I don’t have that for our business is something on the back of my mind that if I had a goal in the future that I would love and would be so much fun for me is to have a spreadsheet for our business expenses

Avram Gonzales: Yeah.

Rachel Gonzales: that I could check off every month.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah.

Rachel Gonzales: And when I see an unexpected expense, I can ask, okay, what was this?

Avram Gonzales: Yeah. Well, Christmas is coming, babe. I was going to say I could get you a spreadsheet, but we don’t know. I’m not the person that would do that. Kim help. All right. That’s who’s listening to this and editing our audio today. And she’s a spreadsheet master. Uh, so for me it’s like, no, it doesn’t keep me up at night the same way, but I, you know, how much I dislike.

Rachel Gonzales: Oh yeah.

Avram Gonzales: uh, when I do find, find out about something, and it’s, especially if it’s close to the last straw for me, or I’m, or I’m, I’m in the mode of cleaning house, it’s like, whoop, gone, whoop gone.

Rachel Gonzales: Right. Well, and you’re really good on the business side about if you know about some, um, Softwares and tools and stuff that you know, we could replace with something better. You let me know all the time Hey, I cut this much money and I cut this much money and I replaced it with this

Avram Gonzales: the other day I cut 85 a month worth of subscriptions off of three different things and

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah, and replaced it with

Avram Gonzales: I replaced it with something else.

Rachel Gonzales: you know, just got some efficiencies. So so next thing Entertaining a toddler.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah, it’s stressful for me right now because in the summer, it was so easy to just go outside and go take him somewhere, and I also enjoy that. I enjoy

Rachel Gonzales: drive him somewhere. You take him on a walk,

Avram Gonzales: I enjoy going to the park with him, I enjoy going on a walk or helping him with his bike and stuff like that. Um, but coming into winter time, it’s really stressful for me because I’m like, what, what do we do in the house?

Rachel Gonzales: Well and You

Avram Gonzales: And I just, and for me, I’m overwhelmed by that, and the, and

Rachel Gonzales: Well, and also the possibility of a mess. There are so many things that he wants to do. Like he could color and that could be a mess. He could paint and that could be a mess

Avram Gonzales: I think you’re right.

He

Rachel Gonzales: could use the sand that we make and that could be a mess. He could use Claydo and that could be a mess. You know, I think, and that could be a mess could be followed up by most of anything that he would do in the house.

Would you agree?

Avram Gonzales: And now that I think about it, like there’s just more effort involved.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah, absolutely. And for me, what I did is. When the weather started getting cold, I suggested we could do bath time adventure because he loves Bicycle adventure or the bicycle road. So we’ll go outside during the summer, we can go on a ride, we could go to the park, all those things, but for me I thought, ugh, I really don’t want to be outside when it’s cold and if August is napping and I’m the only one ho
me, can’t really go outside with a toddler.

So I just find different things that we can do in the house. So it’s not stressful for me finding something for him to do and not just like entertaining him, but encouraging him to use his imagination and suggesting books. And he might want to sit down and watch some shows about with his friends. You know, he loves Daniel Tiger and he loves Blaze and the Monster Machines and gosh, he loves all these different shows.

And while that is okay, and we will take some time to do that, I do suggest books and it’s really cute. If we do books right out the gates, Oh my gosh, he’ll sit and read to me, or he’ll just open it up and he kind of knows what they already say. So, I really enjoy experiencing that with him.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah. So we’re different. Clearly different things stress us. Those were just some fun things that Rachel and I picked out so that we could record this podcast today of ways that were different ways that were same. And I’m sure that you have these things in your relationship and your business, your, your partner.

So we’d love to hear about it. If you go over to the website, babiesandbiz.com/63, that’s the number 63. At the bottom of the page, there’s our comment section. We got a community question for you to answer. What stresses you out that doesn’t stress your partner out? We’d love to hear it. I’m sure you got some funny ones just like us.

Um, what else we got going on, Rachel?

Rachel Gonzales: Well, you know, just another reminder about the B2B Expo that we’re going to be a part of in January. January 15th.

Avram Gonzales: Here in Albuquerque, New mexico

Rachel Gonzales: Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the Convention Center. It’s going to be pretty much all day. And we have this really fun opportunity for you to win some really cool stuff. So it’s going to be, dressing a baby, undressing a baby doll, of course, putting a diaper on and answering questions at the same time.

So whoever gets the best time gets the number one prize. So we’re really, really excited. I think it’s going to be a lot of laughs.

Avram Gonzales: There’s bragging rights up for grabs here in addition to our prizes, so I hope you come down, support us. It’d be nice to have some friends in attendance who can put up those first few high scores and get, get people ready to compete and moving through this, uh, at our booth. So I think we’re, we’ll get the booth number for next time.

We’re like booth like 316, 318, something like

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah. We’ll have more specifics this next time.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah. So with that, we look forward to catching you at the expo, uh, or on the next episode of the babies in business podcast, make sure to like, and subscribe, give us those five star reviews on Apple, Spotify, or wherever it is that you’re listening.

Uh, with that, we’ll catch you on the next episode.

Rachel Gonzales: Bye for now.