March 2, 2020

 

The evolution of your family life has an impact on your personal and business priorities. To grow your company with purpose, you need torecognize and adapt, your company and your expectations to those evolutions - both for yourself, for your family and for your employees.

 

As a single entrepreneur, you can devote your whole heart, soul and focus into the business. The upside is that without family demands or outside responsibilities, you can put a ton of time into growing your business. You might be willing to work 100 hours a week and may see faster results because of it.

 

There are two downsides to this: First, you develop some really bad habits that are hard to undo if your family status changes. Second, it impacts the culture of the company if you expect the same level of commitment for your team. They may not be willing to match your pace. If you create a culture they don't feel comfortable in, you risk losing good people.

 

This is the perfect time in your life to focus on what you are the best in the world at doing. While you might not have the home-life demands right now, you will begin to recognize that brute force won't drive you through. Be proactive in the decision to do those things you are best at doing, and delegate everything else.

 

If you're a single entrepreneur who gets married, you may dial back your schedule slightly from 80 hours a week to 60 for example, or maybe you won't work weekends. If your spouse is working too, you may be equally focused on your careers. Set expectations around when you will be home, communicate any client dinners or after-work events, and be sure to schedule time together that is just about you and your spouse. Date nights, weekend getaways, or having breakfast together can help you lead an integrated life.

 

It's important for you and your spouse to establish communication protocols sooner rather than later. Understand your spouse's relationship with the business and with money. If your spouse comes from a non-entrepreneurial family, they could be risk averse. What involvement will your spouse have in your business, and when? What information about your company will you share with your spouse, and when? When your business is in high growth mode and your marriage is new, you may be tempted to share everything with your spouse, when maybe you shouldn't

 

Eventually the honeymoon phase transitions to everyday life, and the habits you start at the beginning of your marriage are likely to be consistent throughout your relationship. So set some deliberate protocols early on.

 

The minute you are expecting a child, everything changes. Understand what your spouse needs and wants and have the mechanics to be flexible in communicating. What you and your spouse think you need while you're expecting may be different than what you actually want when the baby arrives. Keep the communication open and talk about what you want as the kids grow.

 

Starting a family will cause you to rethink your priorities. You may not want to work long hours when you have a baby at home, a t-ball game to coach, or a piano recital to attend. Even if your spouse stays home or has a more flexible job, your engagement with the kids (no matter what age they are) will still be wanted and needed. To keep the peace on the home front, you need to be present, and that means keeping those crazy work hours to a minimum.

 

When you're married and/or become a parent, you have to identify your specific life goals, build a plan, and talk about how that plan balance with the business. The entrepreneur's spouse tends to default to what the entrepreneur wants because they recognize the business is the juice that drives everything. It doesn't have to be that way. If you have good communication, you can get what you both want, which will save future resentment and conflict.

 

Divorced / Widowed / Single Parent Entrepreneur