CHALLENGES OF RUNNING A BUSINESS WITH YOUR SPOUSE

Husbands and Wives in Business Together

Being an entrepreneur, self-starting business woman, and a wife is difficult. However, when you add in the dynamics of your husband being your business partner, things can get even more challenging. My husband and I have owned several businesses together and separately. The most successful businesses were the ones we worked on building together. They were also the most challenging business to manage because there were so many dynamics to doing it successful that clashed with our personalities, areas of passions, and work methods.

WHO IS THE BOSS?

That is the major hurdle that many couples have to establish. In our case, I had the business idea, but my husband was the business front man since he had the sales experience and passion for in person and phone sales. In his mind, he was the boss. In my mind, I was the boss. This bought challenges when it came to the goals of the business, who did what, who made the decisions, and of course the power struggle.

To fix this we had to:

·       Agree on mission of business

·       Create a business plan

·       Decide on how decisions were made

·       Divide areas of management determined by the person’s strength

·       Agree on expectations – write them down, make them visible

TIME MANAGEMENT

The other area that was hard to manage was our time. Since both of us needed to work the business, work our actual full time jobs, and parent our children, we had many times when we thought the other person was cooking dinner, putting the kids to bed or picking them up from school.

To fix this we had to:

·       Create weekly schedules

·       Assign each other or delegate task out

·       Cut time at full-time job (one of us) to part-time or hire a nanny

MAKE TIME FOR LIFE AND DATES

Sometimes the business takes over. It can cause stress to manifest in the personal relationship of the couple in business. Building a business is fun, exciting and like raising a child that you have more control over. If you aren’t careful though, it will consume everything you care about.

To fix this we had to:

·       Have standing date night – no talking business, kids, or work (we played board games, went to movies, or a day trip)

·       Take mandatory vacation (even if only for two days)

·       Do something special for each other, write notes to remind each other we love them, sneak off for breakfast.

·       Continue to work on our balancing act

By LM Preston, author of Building Your Empowered Steps and Homeschooling and Working While Raising Amazing Learners, www.EmpoweredSteps.com

EMBARRASSMENT – A LESSON, A STRENGTH BUILDING EXPERIENCE

By LM Preston, author of Building Your Empowered Steps and Homeschooling While Working To Shape Amazing Learners, www.empoweredsteps.com

Many of us fear embarrassment to the point of going to great lengths to avoid it. With the exception of comedians, making fun of our past mistakes, goof-ups or unpleasant experiences isn’t common. Instead, we typically try to forget those situations ever happened.

ONE OF MY EMBARRASING MOMENTS

The kids in my neighborhood would spend tons of time making up games. One we played was truth or dare. Usually, I wasn’t invited to play because I was the youngest kid in the neighborhood. However, this particular time, they allowed me to play seemed like the best day of my life. I was going to play with the big kids, and no longer follow behind them. That day, Miniworm had arrived, and she was on top of her little world.

The SET UP

The game went on as usual. Dares were made, secrets were told and the bottle spun. Finally, it was my turn. My moment, my acceptance, and then it came. The kid that had made the last spin, looked at me with a sneaky grin, and I knew immediately that I was doomed.

THE DARE

“I dare you to eat this beetle!” the kid said. I gulped. Then I compared the penalty for not going through with a challenge. The penalty was to let every kid spit in your face. The decision was difficult, the choices were both gross. However, I refused to be made to eat something that I didn’t want.

STANDING UP TO MY SO-CALLED FRIENDS

At that moment of recognition, I felt strong and fierce. Ok, no really I was scared to death. However, I stood and said, “I renege on the dare!” There were gasp, snickers, and whispers. I held my ground, stuck out my chest and licked my lips. “You know what that means don’t ya?” the kid with the dead fat beetle snickered.

“Yeah, and I don’t care!” I said, and swallowed as a tear ran from my eye. Man, I was so angry. The other kids bustled to stand in line in front of me. Never before in our game of Truth or Dare had someone challenged their fate. I was the first, and they relished in the chance to demean me further.

There I stood, as each kid gathered as much saliva in their mouths as possible and spit in my face. My eyes closed as I felt the thick, cool, wet globs slide from my forehead, down my nose to my lips. I held back a gag.

Finally, it was over. My best-friend, who was last in line did a fake spitting sound that held little or no power. Then she took out a tissue and wiped my face.

“Why didn’t you just do the dare?" she whispered.

“I opened my eyes and smiled at her then said, “Cause I didn’t want to eat a stupid beetle.”

GROWING FROM YOUR EXPERIENCES and USING THEM TO HELP OTHERS

When I sit down to write my novels from a teenaged perspective, I have a lot of material to pull from. I was called all sorts of names, teased, and jeered at. I wasn’t the lowest on the totem pole, but I was somewhere near the bottom middle of the middle school pecking order. Yet, through these experiences I learned something about myself. I was a survivor and I was never a follower. That is what I portray in my fiction books and that is a skill I sharpen every day. We all have a purpose and the capacity to stand up for ourselves. Never forget that.

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/empoweredsteps/

Blog: http://empoweredsteps.blogspot.com/

Website: Fiction Books: www.lmpreston.com Empowered Steps: www.empoweredsteps.com

Sometimes We Dream, We Do, We Change Directions

MY TRIP TO AUSTRALIA and NEW ZEALAND

was a DREAM COME TRUE

Sometimes We Dream, We Do, We Change Directions

SOMETIMES WE HAVE TO TRY ON A DREAM 

Just to see if we like it.

MY DREAM TO BE A TRAVEL WRITER

Yes, I used to dream about being a travel writer. I followed this travel show starring SAMANTHA BROWN and I was hooked.

Actually, I believe it started when I was a kid and watched the Brady Bunch, a family of twelve that went to Hawaii. That planted the seed.

THE FIRST TIME I LEFT MY BUBBLE was WITH MY SINGLE MOM

My mother, who was a teen single mom when she had me, worked hard to get my brother and I through private schools. The first trip I took out of state was to Italy. I was lucky enough to get a scholarship and my mom worked extra hours at one of her jobs to pay for the rest. She started a spark in me and love of travel at that moment. I went on a fourteen-day trip that changed my life for the better and made me truly believe that sometimes, just sometimes dreams come true. 

MY HUSBAND GOT ON BOARD

He asked me to marry him and I told him I wanted an adventurous life. Boy, did he ever deliver. He has been my driver, adventure partner, ride or die, best friend and body guard through our travels with four kids.

DOING IT

I dabbled and created a family and friend newsletter of sorts when we started traveling as a family. We’d go somewhere every month by road trips, then upped the game to include week long road trips, then three to four-week trips and finally to flights, and cruising. We pretty much stuck with the international family travel by cruise only since it was easier and payment was simple.

-       I planned the trips, wrote newsletters, created video books

-       I started a travel business

-       I helped others plan their travel

And let me tell you, I learned so much. Mostly, that traveling isn’t perfect, it can be stressful, but oh boy, is it fun!

CHANGING DIRECTIONS

After the newsletter, and traveling with the kids for awhile, I realized, I loved to travel, but the video editing, photo editing, write-ups, details, trip plans, and all that went with it, sucked the fun out of the experience for me. Since this was my personal passion that bought me pleasure in being with my family while experiencing new places, I decided I would only focus on that experience. The time and effort that took away from something I enjoyed wasn’t worth the personal cost for me.

THE EXPERIENCE IN ITSELF is LIFE CHANGING

Always see to try, experience, grow through accomplishing what you are interested in and passionate about. Then realize that it’s okay, to keep the experience and the focus on your own personal pleasure from the experience.

-It’s benefits in trying it on for size

-It’s benefits in changing a course

-It’s benefits in saying, I’ve been there

-It’s benefits in saying, I don’t want to share this, it’s just for me

-It’s benefits in saying, I tried it, but I didn’t like all of it, I didn’t like it at all – but now I know for myself

WHAT HAVE YOU TRIED ON FOR SIZE? AND FOUND IT FIT? IT DIDN’T FIT? IT WAS FUN, but you are ONE and DONE.

Reflect On Your Year, Growth, Setbacks To Step Up

Reflect, then Step

Every year since I was a teen, I used December as a time to reflect. I believe it started when my grandmother died. That year was so hard for me since she had been like a 2nd mother to me all of my life.

She died in December, just days before Christmas. It was significant. A time of joy, hope, and I lost her. That year she left, was hard. I promised myself I would survive it.

I did, ONE STEP at A TIME until I got to the NEXT level then the NEXT.

REFLECT

Do your reflection in strength, with knowing that all the challenges were tools to make you stronger, to give you something to learn about yourself, and that you are here, to do a better turn of your challenges next year.

Then let the emotions spill, flush, cleanse you of this year. This year for me was very difficult. I don't want to forget the losses or the gains. I want to gather up those stones to build my NEXT STEP.

THE NEXT LEVEL

Sure, everyone starts with a New Years resolution. This time, start with a NEW YOU resolution. Take one of those losses and ask yourself what you can learn from it, how you want to grow from it. Then take one of your gains, and smile at that, be thankful for it.

Then...step towards your next level.

Why You Should Not Take No for An Answer

I NEVER DID like that word NO

It's funny how the world most successful people never took 'NO' for an answer. They always came up with innovative ways to make their passion and dreams come true.

WERE YOU TAUGHT AS A CHILD TO OBEY the word NO?

Yes, we all were. Some people intuitively never listen to their benefit and their detriment. Well it's time you free yourself from the binds of that word.

Evaluate your life goals and plan your way around the 'NO'.

HOW and WHEN I HAVE overCOME THE WORD 'NO'

There are many times I worked out in my mind how I was going to accomplish a task that appeared to have every door closed.

One was a recent accomplishment of owning my own publishing company with my husband during a time when publishing and small press publishers were frowned upon. It was hard to get taken seriously, it was not fun getting all the rejection. However, in spite of all of those 'NOs', I found my YES, YES and YES.

Now owning a small press that has helped other authors, want to be publishers, and dreamers reach their star, I can honestly say, I am grateful for being born with a hard head that didn't absorb other's negative barriers, but found ways around them.

SHARE WITH ME HOW YOU TURNED A 'NO' into a 'YES'