Jun 16 2010
Married to your business?
And now . . .
DANCING TOGETHER
for the first time as
Mr. and Mrs. Business
. . .
Okay, the honeymoon is over (thanks to our business-deficient federal government leadership that is relentlessly trying to drive small business into the ground). The envelopes of cash have been spent. The champagne has fizzled away and been replaced by more economical tastes: a “cupala brewskies” we tell the bartender.
As we settle into the kind of more serious and more revealing relationship that matrimonial vows give way to, we discover reality!
BONG! I’m married to my business! OMG, what’s next? Please don’t tell me we’re expecting a new baby business. I’ve hardly figured out how to get my arms around the big one. Sound familiar?
The real problem is that marrying your business has a tendency to overwhelm and upset, and some-times replace, a real husband and wife marriage.
The business “family” (customers. employees, suppliers and vendors, investors, referrers, business associations and organizations, trade and professional groups and pursuits, and the business neighborhood and community) can readily –by stampede or by creeping isolation– become more demanding, and ultimately more demanding than your real family.
Hopefully, you saw or will see this coming in time to reinvent yourself and patch things up, or seek professional help. Many do. Some don’t.
You’re an entrepreneur? It comes with the territory that your life has to suffer at the hands of your business spirit. Or does it?
Plenty of successful business owners have found marriage partners and family situations that allow them to strike a balance with and harmonize their lives. Seeking and winning this balance should be the first thing students learn in entrepreneur school.
Unfortunately, very few actually go to school to learn what has historically been a predominantly inherent skill set. Entrepreneurship thrives among those with predictable personalities and character traits.
Almost universally, entrepreneurs dislike and rebel against authority, discipline, and organizational detail. They are innovators and dreamers with burning desires to see their ideas succeed. They are not –as popularly believed– in it for the money. They do not–as popularly believed– take unreasonable risks.
And if you are one, you well know that personal life is a challenge that often gets in the way while trying to build a business life.
Having worked with many hundreds of entrepreneurs over the years, I would suggest that business quests will be easier and quicker to achieve and much more productive when you can first build and strengthen the authenticity of the personal relationships and family that will support your lamebrain ideas and schemes during the tough times that will surely come. And you will be healthier and happier for their love.
Don’t take my word for it. Take your own. Look in the mirror and remind yourself that your behavior is your choice. Choose first to be a person with a mission to make a difference in life, before running off to chase your vision to make a difference in business.
302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US
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